Antiplatelet and anticoagulant drugs do not affect visual outcome in neovascular age-related macular degeneration in the BRAMD trial

Purpose To determine if use of antiplatelet or anticoagulant (AP/AC) medication influences visual acuity in patients with active neovascular age-related macular degeneration (N-AMD). Design Retrospective analysis of data from a randomized controlled trial. Methods Setting: Multicenter. Study Population: Total of 330 patients with active N-AMD from the BRAMD study, a comparative trial between bevacizumab and ranibizumab in the Netherlands. Observation Procedures: Patients underwent an extensive ophthalmic examination. Visual acuity was categorized into functional vision (best-corrected visual acuity [BCVA] ≥ 0.5), visual impairment (BCVA Results In total, 40.9% of the patients used AP/AC medication, of which 73.3% was aspirin. AP/AC use was not associated with visual impairment (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 0.79; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.43-1.44) or severe visual impairment (adjusted OR 0.75; 95% CI 0.40-1.43). Patients on AP/AC presented with comparable frequencies of hemorrhages (27% vs 32%, P  = .32, respectively). Similar results were found when analyses were restricted to aspirin users only. Conclusion In our study, use of AP/AC medication was associated neither with visual decline nor with the occurrence of hemorrhages in patients with active N-AMD.