Author reply: approach to micronutrition in age-related macular degeneration

Resposta dos autores: abordagem à micronutrição na degeneração macular relacionada à idade

Dear Editor,

We read with great interest the correspondence generated by our article regarding the approach of Turkish ophthalmologists to micro-nutrition in age-related macular degeneration (ARMD). We thank the authors for their interest regarding our article⁽¹⁾.

In our country, we have observed that a proportion of patients with ARMD were improperly treated with regard to micronutrition, and a number of them were left untreated. Therefore, we aimed to further examine this topic in the present study. As the authors mentioned, many of our participants did not use the recommendations of evidence-based medicine studies, particularly AREDS⁽²⁾. We investigated the frequency of micronutrition recommendations by Turkish ophthalmologists.

We completely agree with the authors that retina and uvea specialists see more patients with ARMD than others. Moreover, these specialists are more experienced in the treatment of ARMD. A number of these specialists do not prescribe due to increased treatment costs and failure to meet patient expectations of prescribed drug. Besides, many specialists do not believe the reported effects of micronutrition in cases of ARMD. Lower rates of micronutrition prescriptions can likely be explained by these factors.

We partially agree with the authors’ comment regarding the frequency of micronutrient prescription in our study. The aim of our study was to evaluate the use of micronutrition for the treatment of ARMD in Turkey. It is well known that surveys are subjective in nature. Grading from 1 to 10 can be used; however, we preferred to assess frequency according to responses of "always," "frequently," "occasionally," and "never."

Finally, the authors reported some discordance in our article. The numbers vary according to the number of replies to each of the questions in our study. In our study, 249 participants accepted and completed the survey. A number of participants did not respond to all of the questions, and this may have led to a misunderstanding. The difference in the total numbers is the result of these missing participant answers, not discordance.

We hope we have clarified each of the points related to the authors’ comments and thank them again for their contribution.

• Funding: No specific financial support was available for this study.

REFERENCES

• ¹
  Şahin M, Yüksel H, Şahin A, Cingü AK, Türkcü FM, Özkurt ZG, et al. Approach of Turkish ophthalmologists to micronutrition in age-related macular degeneration. Arq Bras Oftalmol. 2015;78(1):10-4.
• ²
  Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2 Research Group. Lutein + zeaxanthin and omega-3 fatty acids for age-related macular degeneration: the Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2 (AREDS2) randomized clinical trial. JAMA. 2013;309(19):2005-15. Erratum in: JAMA. 2013;310(2):208.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Jul-Aug 2015

History

• Received
  08 June 2015
• Accepted
  11 June 2015