Grant: Project Grant

Neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) is a leading cause of vision loss in older adults. As the disease progresses, patients lose the ability to read, drive, recognize faces, and live independently, and are at increased risk of depression, falls, cognitive decline, and face a growing need for support from family members and caregivers. New treatments can slow vision loss but are demanding. Patients visit surgical centers frequently-often every month-for eye scans and injections of drugs, with treatment continuing for many years and sometimes for life. There is, however, ongoing uncertainty about how intensive treatment needs to be, how often patients should be monitored, when treatment should be changed or stopped, and how to balance small differences in vision outcomes against the physical, emotional, and practical burden of ongoing care. These challenges are especially important in Canada, where long travel distances and uneven access to specialists can make care difficult or inequitable. Despite the importance of these decisions, Canada does not have an up-to-date, high-quality clinical practice guideline for nAMD. As a result, clinicians turn to international guidelines that were not designed for the Canadian health system and that fall short of accepted standards for rigor and transparency. This project will develop a trustworthy Canadian clinical practice guideline for nAMD. A national team of eye specialists, research experts, patients, and health-system representatives will review the best available evidence and consider what matters most to patients. The guideline will deliver clear, evidence-based recommendations on the questions patients and clinicians face every day-how often to treat and monitor, how to choose therapy, when to switch or stop treatment, and how to reduce treatment burden-thereby improving patient outcomes while advancing more patient-centered and sustainable care.