Morphological and Functional Assessment of the Optic Nerve Head and Retinal Ganglion Cells in Dry vs Chronically Treated Wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration

PURPOSE: The aim of the study comprised the anatomical and functional assessment of the optic nerves and macular ganglion cells in the population of patients with unilateral wet age-related macular degeneration (wAMD) and comparison of its results to those obtained from the fellow eye with non-advanced dry age-related macular degeneration (dAMD). Furthermore, we aimed to determine if the number of administered injections contributed to the potential differences between the examined eyes. METHODS: The study was based on 104 eyes of 52 patients in a cross-sectional study. The eyes with chronically treated wAMD were the main subject of the study, while fellow eyes affected with non-advanced dAMD served as the control group. Primary morphological outcomes comprised differences in peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) and GCC layers between the studied groups (treated and control). In turn, primary functional outcomes included differences in implicit times and amplitudes of the P100 wave of pattern visual evoked potentials (PVEP) and N95 wave of pattern electroretinogram (PERG) between treated and control groups. RESULTS: We did not find any differences in total RNFL thickness between wAMD and dAMD groups. The number of injections only affected the RNFL in the nasal quadrant of the optic disc (p = 0.023). We did not find any differences regarding GCL thickness in both groups. In the study group, a longer implicit time of the P100 of PVEP (p = 0.014) and a shorter amplitude of the P50-N95 wave of PERG (p = 0.005) were detected. The total number of injections had no significant effect on these two values. CONCLUSION: We detected worse functional parameters of the optic nerve and retinal ganglion cells in eyes with wAMD, with lack of significant differences in anatomical (RNFL, GCL) parameters compared to the control group. However, the number of injections did not contribute to the differences found.