Dr Paul Hahn Highlights Shifting Trends Among Retina Specialists

There has been a sea change in how retina specialists treat retinal diseases, with a progressive shift toward more utilization of anti–vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), said Paul Hahn, MD, vitreoretinal surgeon at NJRetina.

Transcript

Over the years of running the ASRS Preferences and Trends survey, have you seen any large shifts in responses to trends that are worth highlighting?

With the PAT survey, year over a year, we repeat some key questions to try to highlight important trends. Trends that we're often most interested in learning about are new technologies, new therapies that might be rapidly changing. For example, a couple of years ago, the FDA approval of the first ILM [internal limiting membrane]–staining agent—it’s a staining agent to help us perform macular surgery more effectively—this first agent was FDA approved, and prior to that, we were using an off-label agent. Over the past couple of years in the US, we saw rapid uptake in the utilization of this agent. This agent was actually approved earlier internationally, and over those prior years, we saw similar rapid increase in its uptake.

There have been some slower trends that we've been following closely as well. In the treatment of retinal diseases, there have really been sea changes in the way we perform things. For example, over the past 15 years, there has been a progressive shift toward utilization of more anti-VEGF therapy for treatment of retinal diseases, and we capture that with the PAT survey. Currently, there's a move toward, potentially, use of anti-VEGF therapy for treatment of retinal diseases that we previously did not treat, such as for severe nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy, something that we previously monitored. The PAT survey is in the process of capturing whether there really is a sea change or whether people will stick with their current habits.