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Background.Anti-VEGF therapy is currently regarded as the gold standard for the treatment of many macular diseases, while the results of its application in real clinical practice are often inferior to those from randomized clinical trials. Materials and methods.A study group was formed on the basis of a retrospective analysis of the medical data of patients who received anti-VEGF therapy with ranibizumab and/or aflibercept according to registered indications, and who discontinued their follow-up in the clinic (n= 214). A phone survey of patients concerning the reasons for loss to follow-up with a statistical analysis of the obtained data was carried out. Results.The majority of patients (81.3%) discontinued observation in the clinic within two years from the start of therapy (the median duration of treatment was 7 (3; 18) months). Patients with all considered diseases had an increase in best corrected visual acuity during treatment (p 0.000001), which confirms the high efficiency of the method. According to the results of the phone survey, the following categories of respondents were identified: complete cessation of treatment 120 (56.1%) patients, change of clinic 20 (9.3%), death 23 (10.7%), status not established 51 (23.8%). The most frequent reasons for stopping treatment were dissatisfaction with its results (59 cases; 49.2%), financial burden (49; 40.8%), and systemic comorbidities (24; 20.0%). Conclusion.Searching approaches to increase patients treatment adherence is one of the priorities for improving anti-VEGF therapy.

Purpose: to study long-term (over a 60 months’ follow-up period) results of anti-VEGF therapy for macular diseases in real clinical practice.Materials and methods. We undertook a single-center retrospective uncontrolled cohort study of 169 patients (109 women, 60 men) who received anti-VEGF therapy for eye diseases (ranibizumab, aflibercept). The treatment started between May 2010 and August 2015. The study group included 57 patients who remained under regular observation for 60 months. Of these, 24 cases had “wet” age-related macular degeneration (wAMD), 20 cases had myopic choroidal neovascularization, 10 had macular edema due to retinal vein occlusions and 3 had diabetic macular edema. The remaining 112 patients whose follow-up was discontinued made up the comparison group. We analyzed the dynamic results of clinical and instrumental examination in both groups, as well as data from a phone survey among the comparison group about the reasons for the termination of clinical observation. Statistical analysis of demographic data and treatment results was carried out using the Statistica 13.3 software. Conditions of normality for variables, nonparametric and parametric criteria were determined, and rank analysis of variance was carried out.Results. The patients in the study group were significantly younger (p = 0.0029), had a higher initial (p = 0.0019) and final (p = 0.00027) best corrected visual acuity, and received a significantly greater number of intravitreal injections (p < 0.000001). In contrast, they had a significantly lower rate of therapy intensity factor (the ratio of injections number to the duration of observation in months) over the treatment period (p < 0.000001). In addition, the study group had a significantly lower proportion of men (p = 0.041) and patients with wAMD (p = 0.0010). The reasons for the termination of observation in the comparison group given in the phone survey, were as follows: stopped regular observation / treatment — 57 people (50.9 %), continue treatment in a different clinic — 3 (2.7 %), died — 13 (11.6 %), status unknown — 39 (34.8 %).Conclusion. The data of the main morphological and functional results of treatment of the study group patients, discussion and conclusions will be presented in the second part of this article.

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