Preferential Hyperacuity Perimetry: Perspectives of Self-Monitoring of Neovascular Activity in Patients with Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Abstract

The socio-economic burden of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) has strongly
increased in public health importance due to the aging of the general population, and in clinics
because of the world-wide use of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) drugs
in patients with neovascular AMD (NV-AMD).1-5 In all health care services of the developed
countries, a large portion of NV-AMD burden is related to the growing human resources employed to carry out those frequent monitoring visits required to verify the necessity of antiVEGF repetition. In view of recent findings in earlier diagnosis of AMD-related choroidal neovascularization (CNV) by means of the self-monitoring with preferential hyperacuity perimetry
(PHP) device,6-8 possibilities and limitations of this innovative self-monitoring approach, whose
rationale exploits the human “Vernier acuity” visual function,9,10 should be investigate to verify
its ability in detecting the need for anti-VEGF retreatments among patients with NV-AMD, and
to prospectively reduce the costs for the clinical governance of this sight-threatening disease.