Proposed algorithm during COVID-19 pandemic for patient management in medical retina clinic

• Published in: International journal of retina and vitreous Vol. 6; no. 1; pp. 1 - 20
• Main Authors: Corazza, Paolo, D’Alterio, Francesco Maria, Younis, Saad
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London BioMed Central 03.06.2020; BMC
• Subjects: Algorithms; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Diabetes; Diabetic retinopathy; Disease transmission; Edema; Lasers; Masks; Medical supplies; Original; Pandemics; Patients; Physicians; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Social distancing; United Kingdom > UK
• ISSN: 2056-9920; 2056-9920
• DOI: 10.1186/s40942-020-00226-z

During this emergency, this scheme of treatment maybe helped us to protect patients with macular condition probably more easily compared to pro-re-nata (PRN). * We have a Virtual clinic service for stable patient that do not need to be seen in the “face-to-face” clinics. * Electronic Medical Records (EMR) represents a very helpful tool for clinicians. In this category we grouped patients affected by wet AMD or secondary macular choroidal neovascularization (CNV), only eye patients with any macular disorder, and patient with active proliferative diabetic retinopathy (R3) [12]. * Low risk patients (LRP): including patients who may need to receive ocular treatment (such as IVT injections or laser), but it can be deferred over time with lower risk of permanent eye damage compared to the HRP group. Best Corrected Visual Acuity (BCVA) evaluation, intraocular pressure (IOP) check, optical coherence tomography (OCT), OCT angiography (OCTA) and wide-field retinal imaging. For wet AMD or macular CNV patients we decided to inject with Aflibercept regardless to previous type of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) agents given because of its longer duration of action compared to other anti-VEGFs [13].