Pegcetacoplan significantly lowers geographic atrophy progression secondary to AMD

According to a new study Pegcetacoplan significantly lowers geographic atrophy progression secondary to AMD. However in order to fully understand the pathognomonic variability in individual lesion development and therapy response, geographic atrophy (GA) progression must be evaluated topographically, says an article published in Ophthalmology Retina.

In order to determine disease activity and the effects of intravitreal pegcetacoplan treatment on the topographic progression of geographic atrophy secondary to age-related macular degeneration as measured in spectral-domain OCT (SD-OCT) by automated deep learning assessment, Wolf-Dieter Vogl and team conducted this study. 

This study evaluated pegcetacoplan in GA patients and was a retrospective review of a phase II clinical trial investigation. In a total of 312 scans, SD-OCT images from 57 eyes receiving monthly therapy, 46 eyes receiving every-other-month (EOM) treatment, and 53 eyes receiving sham injection were included. Using verified deep learning techniques, the retinal pigment epithelium loss, photoreceptor (PR) integrity, and hyperreflective foci (HRF) were automatically segmented. A growth model evaluating the local expansion of GA margins between baseline and one year was used to calculate the local progression rate (LPR). The eccentricity to the foveal center, mean PR thickness, progression direction, and HRF concentration in the junctional zone were all calculated for each individual margin point. Spatial generalized additive mixed-effect models were used to predict the mean LPR in disease activity and the treatment impact conditional on these features.