Author: Ritu Chaturvedi
Co-authors: Usman Hayat, Ramandeep Chhabra
Abstract
PurposeThe aim of this study was to identify and characterize patients with medical retinal pathologies who were registered visually impaired in the 12 months period.
Setting/Venue
Manchester Royal Eye Hospital (MREH), United Kingdom is a tertiary referral centre with a dedicated sub-specialist medical retina service, serving a population of over 6 million in the North-West of England. It is the second largest eye hospital in the United Kingdom.
Methods
A retrospective observational study to identify all patients registered visually impaired over a 12-month period (January 2021- December 2021). Data was extracted from MREH prospective records register and adult patients with medical retinal pathologies were than identified from this cohort. Data were analyzed to assess patient demographics, registration as Sight Impaired (SI) or Severely Sight Impaired (SSI) and characterize the patients with medical retinal pathologies.
Results
A total of 542 patients were registered visually impaired over the study period. The mean age at registration was 69 years (range 20-100),thirty one percent (n=60) were of the working age group (up to 64 years). Fifty six percent of patients (n=109) were females.
The distribution of patients based on the degree of vision impairment was almost even with 51% patients being registered SI and 49% SSI.
The patients were grouped into young adults (n=21, 18–39 years), middle aged (n=31, 40–59 years), late middle age (n=53, 60-79 years) and elderly (n=89, >80 years) based on the age at their last birthday.
Medical retinal pathologies accounted for 36% of these patients (n=194).
The overall??commonest cause of vision loss was age related macular degeneration (50%). Of this cohort, 9 patients had additional ocular co-pathologies including retinal vein occlusion (RVO) and glaucoma.
Amongst the working age group ( Other less common causes of visual impairment in the study cohort included RVO (7%), Retinal Artery occlusion (1%,), Myopic CNVM (1%, ), Chronic Central Serous Chorioretinopathy (1.5% ) and Radiation retinopathy (1%).
Rarer causes such as, hypertensive choroidopathy, adult onset vitelliform dystrophy, chronic cystoid macular oedema, choroideremia, autoimmune retinopathy and drug toxicity were also observed amongst the study group.
Conclusions
This study identifies the burden of visual impairment from medical retinal pathologies which accounted for over a third of CVI registrations at our busy tertiary hospital in UK.
It also highlights the common causes of vision loss in different age groups and helps to guide allocation of resources to support these patients.
Trends in CVI certification rates can serve as a powerful quality assurance tool for medical retinal services.
