Heloterä Hanna, Viita Anna-Mari, Laine Juha
Roche Oy, Espoo, Finland.
Department of Ophthalmology, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland.
Clin Ophthalmol. 2024 Dec 8;18:3645-3655. doi: 10.2147/OPTH.S479816. eCollection 2024.
The prevalence of vision-threatening diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic macular edema (DME), is likely to increase in developed countries owing to an aging population, rising life expectancy, and unfavorable lifestyle changes. Increases in the burden of vision-threatening diseases pose a challenge to the healthcare system. After the emergence of intravitreal anti-VEGF inhibitors, treatment options for neovascular AMD (nAMD), DME, retinal vein occlusion (RVO) and myopic choroidal neovascularization (myopic CNV) have increased. As this change in treatment practices has occurred over the last two decades, it is important to demonstrate changes in patient numbers and administered treatments to provide solutions for handling the workload and productivity in ophthalmology departments. In addition, the registry data landscape has evolved in Finland in recent years. Thus, understanding the possibilities and limitations of ophthalmology registries and patient information systems is required.
This study involved the secondary use of retrospectively registered data from the data warehouse of the Hospital District of Southwest Finland. Our goal was to explore how the workload of ophthalmology departments caused by intravitreal injections has evolved from 2015 to 2022.
The ophthalmology department workload increased significantly during our observation period as the total number of patients receiving intravitreal treatments for nAMD, DME, RVO, and myopic CNV increased 199.6% from 2015 to 2021. In addition, the total number of administered anti-VEGF injections increased during our observation period, but the increase rate began to subside (2019-2020: increase 23.7%, 2020-2021: increase 10.3%, 2021-2022: increase 6.7%).
Supporting the utilization of registry data is essential in evidence-based discussions evolving workload in healthcare. However, it is important to understand the limitations and the quality of the registries. Our study contributes to better understanding the Finnish registry perspective, and it demonstrates the increase in workload in ophthalmology departments caused by intravitreal injections.
由于人口老龄化、预期寿命延长以及不良生活方式的改变，在发达国家，诸如年龄相关性黄斑变性（AMD）和糖尿病性黄斑水肿（DME）等威胁视力的疾病患病率可能会上升。威胁视力疾病负担的增加给医疗保健系统带来了挑战。玻璃体内抗血管内皮生长因子（VEGF）抑制剂出现后，新生血管性AMD（nAMD）、DME、视网膜静脉阻塞（RVO）和近视性脉络膜新生血管（近视性CNV）的治疗选择有所增加。由于这种治疗方法的改变发生在过去二十年中，展示患者数量和所给予治疗的变化对于为眼科部门处理工作量和提高生产力提供解决方案很重要。此外，近年来芬兰的登记数据情况有所发展。因此，需要了解眼科登记处和患者信息系统的可能性和局限性。
本研究涉及对芬兰西南部医院区数据仓库中回顾性登记数据的二次使用。我们的目标是探讨2015年至2022年期间玻璃体内注射导致的眼科部门工作量是如何演变的。
在我们的观察期内，眼科部门的工作量显著增加，因为接受nAMD、DME、RVO和近视性CNV玻璃体内治疗的患者总数在2015年至2021年期间增加了199.6%。此外，在我们的观察期内，所给予的抗VEGF注射总数有所增加，但增长率开始下降（2019 - 2020年：增加23.7%，2020 - 2021年：增加10.3%，2021 - 2022年：增加6.7%）。
在基于证据讨论医疗保健工作量演变时，支持登记数据的利用至关重要。然而，了解登记处的局限性和质量很重要。我们的研究有助于更好地从芬兰登记处的角度进行理解，并展示了玻璃体内注射导致的眼科部门工作量增加。
