Verana Health Presents Geographic Atrophy and Diabetic Macular Edema Research at ASRS 2022
Verana Health delivered two podium presentations at the American Society of Retina Specialists annual meeting in New York City on July 15.
The research findings were generated through analysis of Ophthalmology Qdata, real-world data resulting from the curation of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (Academy) IRIS Registry (Intelligent Research in Sight). The IRIS Registry—powered by Verana Health’s VeraQ population health data engine—is the largest specialty society clinical data registry in all of medicine. It incorporates more than 9 years of longitudinal data on approximately 74 million patients and 16,000 contributing clinicians across the United States.
The two research abstracts presented at ASRS demonstrated Verana Health’s ability to strategically collaborate with life sciences companies to uncover new insights from its exclusive real-world data network.
Durga Borkar, MD, MMCi, presented an abstract about a study conducted in collaboration with Apellis Pharmaceuticals, titled “Characterizing Real-World Functional Outcomes in Patients with Geographic Atrophy: An IRIS Registry Analysis” in a session on Friday, July 15 from 9:00 am to 9:55 am EDT. The study was based on an analysis of clinical notes of patients with geographic atrophy (GA) from the IRIS Registry. The objective of the research was to report results of a retrospective cohort analysis of patient notes to assess the feasibility of quantifying vision-related quality of life (VR-QoL). This study searched for text strings relevant to VR-QoL, including “driving” and “reading,” in unstructured clinical notes. The findings revealed that functional outcomes were rarely documented in patient notes, highlighting the need for improved tools to collect real-world data (RWD) on patient QoL.
Theodore Leng, MD, MS, also presented an abstract titled “Long-Term Real-World Treatment Patterns Among Patients with Diabetic Macular Edema Initiating Anti-VEGF: 6-year Follow-up Using the IRIS Registry” during a session on Friday, July 15 from 2 pm to 3 pm EDT. This study, conducted in collaboration with Genentech, aimed to characterize long-term treatment patterns including discontinuations, and switching of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapies amongst patients with diabetic macular edema (DME). The study revealed that although most patients with DME discontinue intravitreal therapy (IVT) after a mean of 6 months, a third of patients resumed treatment. This might imply that after initial treatment discontinuation, due to perceived success by the physician or patient, additional treatment was still required. This highlights the need for continued surveillance of DME patients and the need for long-term treatment. The study also showed that 58% of patients initially received bevacizumab, but its use decreased over time with an increased use of on-label agents.
To learn more about the IRIS Registry and our partnership with the American Academy of Ophthalmology, visit: https://www.veranahealth.com/partners/.