Trends in optical coherence tomography angiography use in university clinic and private practice setting between 2014-2018

ABSTRACT

Background

The aim was to assess the trends in optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) use compared with fluorescein angiography (FA).

Methods

A bilateral patient’s exam on a single day was considered one examination. A total of 3680 and 700 OCTA examinations and 3387 and 439 FA examinations were performed between 2014 and 2018 in a university clinic and private practice, respectively. A regression analysis was completed.

Results

The use of OCTA procedures grew 17-fold from 2015 till 2018. In a university clinic, ultrawide-field FA accounted for 2% of all FA examinations performed in 2015, and its use increased to 68% in 2018 while the number of narrow-field FA examinations dropped from 617 in 2014 to 220 in 2018. This decrease inversely correlated with the rise of diabetic retinopathy cases diagnosed with FA (R= −0.86, p= 0.02). In private practice, the increase in the use of OCTA was a primary driver of the decline of the FA use from 127 in 2015 to 27 in 2018, while the number of OCTA examinations was 344 in 2018 (R= −0.99, p= 0.06).

Conclusion

The results of the study indicate that OCTA is a valuable tool capable of replacing FA in some selected cases.

KEYWORDS:

• OCTA
• OCT-A
• clinical effectiveness
• FA vs OCTA
• Optos

Declaration of interest

Adam Wylęgała received speaker honoraria from Carl Zeiss Meditec and Topcon Medical. He is a consultant at Carl Zeiss Meditec and has a patent pending for the OCT angiography algorithm. Polish patent office P.418979. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Data availability statement

Data are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was funded by the National Center for Research and Development [Grant no. STRATEGMED1/234261/2/NCBR/2014].