Preferential hyperacuity perimetry: perspectives of self-monitoring of neovascular activity in patients with age-related macular degeneration

The socio-economic burden of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) has strongly increased in public health importance due to the aging of the general population, and in clinics because of the world-wide use of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) drugs in patients with neovascular AMD (NV-AMD). In all health care services of the developed countries, a large portion of NV-AMD burden is related to the growing human resources employed to carry out those frequent monitoring visits required to verify the necessity of anti-VEGF repetition. In view of recent findings in earlier diagnosis of AMD-related choroidal neovascularization (CNV) by means of the self- monitoring with preferential hyperacuity perimetry (PHP) device, possibilities and limitations of this innovative self-monitoring approach, whose rationale exploits the human "Vernier acuity" visual function, should be investigate to verify its ability in detecting the need for anti-VEGF retreatments among patients with NV-AMD, and to prospectively reduce the costs for the clinical governance of this sight-threatening disease.