Background: To evaluate the outcomes of intravitreal faricimab (IVF) for refractory neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) and investigate the impact of baseline optical coherence tomography, biomarkers for total IVF injections are needed. Methods: A retrospective analysis of 33 eyes of patients who completed one year (52 W) of treatment with IVF. The eyes received four IVF injections (6 mg/0.05 mL) as the upload phase. Thereafter, the treatment interval was extended to 8 or 12 weeks if disease activity was not recorded. The outcome measures included best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), central macular thickness (CMT), subfoveal choroidal thickness (SFCT), and retinal fluid distribution. Results: A total of 33 eyes were included. CMT decreased significantly at 52 W (p < 0.01). BCVA and SFCT did not change significantly at 52 W (p > 0.05). The number of eyes with subretinal fluid decreased significantly at 52 W (p < 0.01). Complete fluid resolution was achieved in 20 eyes (60%). The total number of injections was significantly negatively correlated with the presence of hyperreflective dots at baseline (HRDs, p < 0.01) and SFCT at baseline (p < 0.01). Conclusions: IVF led to a significant reduction in CMT with stabilization of BCVA. The total number of injections was lower in eyes with HRDs and increased SFCT at baseline. This might provide clues regarding response to IVF for future studies.

First-Year Real-Life Experience with Intravitreal Faricimab for Refractory Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) has been reported to cause pustular drug eruptions such as acute generalized exanthematous pustulosis (AGEP) and putular psoriasis (PP). Clinical differentitation of these entities is often difficult. This case emphasizes characteritics of AGEP and PP as well as the need for clinicans to proactively follow-up these patients to monitor for the more aggressive outcome of PP. 

Hydroxychloroquine‐induced repetitive atypical pustular drug eruptions in the same patient separated by 12 years

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE
Vitiligo is a depigmenting disorder that affects up to 2% of the population. Due to the relatively high prevalence of this disease and its psychological impact on patients, decisions concerning treatment can be difficult. As patients increasingly seek health information online, the caliber of online health information (OHI) becomes crucial in patients' decisions regarding their care. We aimed to assess the quality and readability of OHI regarding phototherapy in the management of vitiligo.


METHODS
Similar to previously published studies assessing OHI, we used 5 medical search terms as a proxy for online searches made by patients. Results for each search term were assessed using an enhanced DISCERN analysis, Health On the Net code of conduct (HONcode) accreditation guidelines, and several readability indices. The DISCERN analysis is a validated questionnaire used to assess the quality of OHI, while HONcode accreditation is a marker of site reliability.


RESULTS
Of the 500 websites evaluated, 174 were HONcode-accredited (35%). Mean DISCERN scores for all websites were 58.9% and 51.7% for website reliability and treatment sections, respectively. Additionally, 0/130 websites analyzed for readability scored at the NIH-recommended sixth-grade reading level.


CONCLUSION
These analyses shed light on the shortcomings of OHI regarding phototherapy treatment for vitiligo, which could exacerbate disparities for patients who are already at higher risk of worse health outcomes.

Phototherapy for vitiligo: Quality and readability of online health information.

PURPOSE
The aim of the study was to explore factors affecting the progression of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) and identify predictive factors that can estimate the duration of intravitreal treatments.


METHODS
This retrospective real-world study included 421 nAMD patients treated at the Kuopio University Hospital during years 2007-2021. The collected data included background demographics, treatment history, visual acuity and retinal biomarker analysis. Impact of baseline factors on age at diagnosis, treatment duration, received treatment intensity and visual acuity gains were analysed.


RESULTS
Heavy smoking and high body mass index (BMI) were associated with an earlier onset, while the use of anticoagulation and anti-aggregation medication were associated with a later onset of nAMD. A low number of injections during the first year of treatment and the presence of intraretinal fluid (IRF) at baseline were associated with shorter treatment duration. Interestingly, when IRF only patients were compared to subretinal fluid (SRF) only patients, IRF patients showed higher occurrences of subretinal drusenoid deposits (43.5% vs. 15%, p = 0.04). In addition, when all patients with IRF were compared to SRF only patients, more hyperreflective foci (HRF) and complete RPE and outer retinal atrophy (cRORA; 20.7% vs. 5%, p = 0.02) were observed in patients with IRF.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results reveal that heavy smoking and high BMI are accelerating factors for earlier emergence of nAMD, while the presence of IRF results in a fast-progressing disease. More intriguingly, the link between IRF and appearance of subretinal drusenoid deposits, HRF, and increased retinal atrophy was observed.

Analysis of prognostic and predictive factors in neovascular age-related macular degeneration Kuopio cohort.

Since its inception, retinal imaging has been vital in documenting and understanding macular diseases. The early thinking was to document retinal pathology as it became possible to visualize the retina using an ophthalmoscope. This reasoning quickly evolved into the need to monitor disease evolution and treatment changes using digital images. With further rapid advancement in imaging technology, it has become possible to visualize and image at a subcellular level, the macula, in health and disease. Technological advances have resulted in the scanning laser ophthalmoscope, optical coherence tomography, and adaptive optics incorporation into imaging. The “dye” and “non-dye” based evaluation of retinal vasculature has improved our understanding of various macula and retinovascular diseases. The fundus photograph and optical coherence tomography are the most utilized technologies for imaging the macula. With an expected increase in diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration patients, more macular imaging will be done in years to come. Consequently, more macula image data will be available for data analysis using artificial intelligence, improving our predictive ability and personalization. Therefore, macular imaging will assume increasing significance and imaging techniques for the macula should be known and understood. This chapter provides an exhaustive list of common and less-known imaging techniques for macular imaging and an overview of their use in evaluating the macula in clinical practice and research. 

Macular Imaging

Optical coherence tomography has revolutionized the diagnosis and management of neovascular age-related macular degeneration. OCT-derived biomarkers have the potential to further guide therapeutic advancements with anti-vascular endothelial growth factor; however, the clinical convergence between these two tools remains suboptimal. Therefore, the aim of this review of literature was to examine the current data on OCT biomarkers and their prognostic value. Thirteen biomarkers were analyzed, and retinal fluid had the strongest-reported impact on clinical outcomes, including visual acuity, clinic visits, and anti-VEGF treatment regimens. In particular, intra-retinal fluid was shown to be associated with poor visual outcomes. Consistencies in the literature with regard to these OCT prognostic biomarkers can lead to patient-specific clinical decision making, such as early-initiated treatment and proactive monitoring. An integrated analysis of all OCT components in combination with new efforts toward automated analysis with artificial intelligence has the potential to further improve the role of OCT in nAMD therapy.

/pdf/prognostic-optical-coherence-tomography-biomarkers-in-19zo8pk0.pdf

Prognostic Optical Coherence Tomography Biomarkers in Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Accepted: June 20, 2023; Published: April 2023 Copyright: ©2023 Chen et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (BY-NC-4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/, which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.

Eosinophilic Pustular Folliculitis in the Setting of Solid Organ Transplant Immunosuppression

Generalized pustular psoriasis (GPP) is a multisystem disease with potentially life-threatening adverse effects. As patients increasingly seek health information online, and as the landscape for GPP changes, the quality of online health information (OHI) becomes progressively more important. This paper is the first of its kind to examine the quality, comprehensiveness, and readability of online health information for GPP. Similar to pre-existing studies evaluating OHI, this paper examines 5 key search terms for GPP- 3 medical and 2 laymen. For each search term, the results were evaluated based on: HONCode accreditation, an enhanced DISCERN analysis and a number of readability indices. Of the 500 websites evaluated, 84 (16.8%) were HONcode-accredited. Mean DISCERN scores of all websites were 74.9% and 38.6% for website reliability and treatment sections, respectively, demonstrating key gaps in comprehensiveness and reliability of GPP-specific OHI. Additionally, only 4/100 websites (4%) analyzed for readability were written at the NIH-recommended sixth-grade level. Academic websites were significantly more difficult to read than governmental websites. This further exacerbates the patient information gap, particularly for patients with low health literacy, who may already be at higher risk of not receiving timely medical care.

Generalized Pustular Psoriasis: Quality and Readability of Online Health Information.

Reticular Patches in a Patient With Multiple Myeloma: Answer.

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Jeffrey Chen

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

Prognostic Optical Coherence Tomography Biomarkers in Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Hydroxychloroquine‐induced repetitive atypical pustular drug eruptions in the same patient separated by 12 years

Eosinophilic Pustular Folliculitis in the Setting of Solid Organ Transplant Immunosuppression

Generalized Pustular Psoriasis: Quality and Readability of Online Health Information.

Reticular Patches in a Patient With Multiple Myeloma: Answer.