Insights for early detection of age-related macular degeneration

Leo P. Semes, OD, Professor Emeritus of Optometry and Vision Sciences at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, spoke with our Eye Care team at the the 17th annual Controversies in Modern Eye Care symposium at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, California.

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Leo P. Semes:

Hi I'm Dr. Leo Semes, Professor Emeritus of Optometry and Vision Science at the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

My talk today concerned early detection of age-related macular degeneration. And the ARES study used color fundus photography to determine stage age-related macular degeneration.

But what we're seeing with multimodal imaging capabilities is that that's really alone inadequate for identifying early changes with age-related macular degeneration.

There is some new terminology that allows us from OCT interpretation to identify subretinal drusenoid deposits, and that's a very good descriptor for what we see on OCT—little irregularities beneath the surface of the sensory retina.

So that's one area where optometrists can identify, especially patients at high risk for age-related macular degeneration—because of a family history, because of age, because of poor diet, because of comorbidities—to screen for those subtle changes in early macular degeneration.

So the message for early identification of age-related macular degeneration is, first of all, awareness of high risk among our patients, and maybe screening earlier, looking for symptoms such as difficulty with low light situations or difficulty with dark adaptation, for example, and then identifying those patients and confirming with clinical findings, what it is that those patients' situation actually is with the retina.