Wet AMD. Credit: Richard Leung/Kings College Hospital

The authors of a study of patient-administered visual function tests designed to detect neovascular AMD have found reliance on them would risk unnecessary sight loss.

Led by researchers at Queen’s University Belfast and Moorfields, the study team evaluated the KeepSight Journal (from the International Macular and Retinal Foundation), the MyVisionTrack vision-monitoring mobile app (Genentech) and the MultiBit app (Visumetrics) with 297 patients aged 50 years-plus with at least one eye having been treated for active nAMD for at least six months.

Despite all the devices being CE approved, researchers reported that none of them provided satisfactory diagnostic accuracy, with only the KeepSight Journal ‘worse vision summary score’ showing a statistically significant association with lesion activity. Implementing any of these tests, with ophthalmologists only reviewing test positives, would mean most active lesions were missed, concluded researchers.

The study was published in JAMA Ophthalmology