Researchers at the Department of Ophthalmology, Zealand University Hospital, Denmark, showed that peripheral changes in UWFI (ultra-widefield imaging) were found to be highly prevalent in eyes with AMD. The systematic review and meta-analysis supported the claim that AMD disease is pan-retinal and not macula only. The researchers indicated that clinical significance of peripheral lesions in AMD remains partially understood.
A systematic review is designed to “search, appraise and collate all relevant empirical evidence in order to provide a complete interpretation of research results.” In order to remove bias, a pooled dataset of broad research should provide a clear evidence-based medicine output. In the current study, systematically reviewed literature provided an overview of ultra-widefield imaging (UWFI) of peripheral retinal lesions in AMD. In the methodology, ultra-widefield imaging including pseudocolor photography, fundus autofluorescence, fluorescein angiography, and indocyanine green angiography was used in AMD data. The eligibility of the study reports was restricted to human participants and studies written in English and searched the bibliographic databases PubMed, the Cochrane Library, EMBASE, and the Web of Science.
In the results, twelve studies were reviewed which included 3,261 or more eyes and had a random population sample of individuals 62 years of age or older. According to the analysis, the peripheral lesions most commonly observed were drusen, atrophy and changes to the RPE (retinal pigment epithelium). In eyes with AMD, peripheral lesions were found in 82.7% of eyes (confidence interval, 78.4%-86.7%) compared with 33.3% of healthy eyes (confidence interval, 28.3%-38.5%). The significance of the research indicated that UWFI provide “new evidence to show that clinical features associated with AMD are not exclusive to the area of the macula.” The researchers clearly proposed that further UWFI studies are recommended to extend research in this field.