Michael Ammar, MD, a retinal specialist and surgeon at Retina Consultants San Diego (RCSD), offered his clinical perspective from the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) annual meeting, including his top sessions and topics from the second day of subspecialty sessions—including newly-released phase 3 data.
Give us a hot topic of the day.
Dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) or, more specifically, geographic atrophy (GA).
This past year, we had two FDA-approved treatments for GA:
- Syfovre (pegcatacoplan)
- Apellis Pharmaceuticals
- Izervay (avacincaptad pegol intravitreal solution)
- Iveric Bio, An Astellas Company
Prior to this year, we had never had an FDA–approved treatment for the treatment of geographic atrophy, let alone two.
A record year, to say the least. So any updates on that front?
Both medications had previously presented Year 1 data with promising results, but for the first time today, they presented their 2-year data.
Jeffrey S. Heier, MD, presented the positive results of the GALE extension study on Syfovre, which showed an overall decrease in GA growth of 35% in the monthly treatment arm and 24% in the every-other-month (EOM) treatment arm at 2 years.
There also appeared to be an increased effect over time, with a larger decrease in growth when patients were on the medication for a longer period of time.
(Read our Glance coverage on this here)
And on the Izervay front?
The phase 3 GATHER2 trial results on Izervay were presented by Arshad M. Khanani, MD, MA, FASRS.
He reported positive results at 2 years, with a decrease of 14% in GA growth in the monthly dose group, and 19% in the group that began monthly and then switched to EOM in the second year.
(Read more details in our Glance coverage here)
Which session did you find most clinically informative?
Jasmine H. Francis, MD, presented a talk as part of the second day of retina subspecialty sessions as part of Section X: Imaging, titled Imaging Pearls for Distinguishing Benign From Malignant Intraocular Tumors.
This was a discussion looking at the characteristics of these different intraocular masses to help identify which are benign and which are more dangerous, from hemangiomas to melanomas. She highlighted the importance of using these different tools in our clinics coupled with our access to imaging to try and gather as much information as possible to make an accurate diagnosis whenever cancer is in the differential diagnosis.
Is there any way I can view these sessions myself?
Side note from our Glance editorial team here…
Yes! A number of sessions are available live and on demand, including these subspecialties.
Click here to open the sessions for the virtual meeting via the AAO app (but make sure you’re logged in as attendee first)! And to view the Retina Day 2 Specialty sessions, click here.
Now back to our conversation…
So what’s on your agenda for Saturday?
The World of Secondary IOLs, a cataract session presented at 8 am - 9:15 am PST, by:
- Senior instructor:
- Ashvin Agarwal, MD
- Instructor(s):
- D. Brian Kim, MD
- Steven G Safran, MD
- Nicole R Fram, MD
- Sergio Canabrava, MD
- John Steven Parker, MD
With the number of instructors who are presenting, this course is going to examine different secondary intraocular lens (IOL) techniques along with their strengths and weaknesses.
Secondary IOLs in surgery continue to evolve and change—particularly over the last 5 to 10 years—with our techniques getting better and better.
This is an area that's a particular surgical focus and passion of mine, so I'm looking forward to hearing a discussion with some of the world's experts on how they best manage these patients and the surgeries.Click here for more details on this session.
The American Academy of Ophthalmology annual meeting is being held Nov. 3-6 2023, in San Francisco, California.