OBJECTIVES: To identify preference drivers of patients on aspects related to the management of wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD).

METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, a self-explicated ‘conjoint analysis’ survey was administered online to eligible patients with wet AMD (receiving anti-VEGF treatment for at least 12 months) from USA, Canada, UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Japan, Taiwan and Australia. The survey consisted of 6 domains with 21 attributes, which were selected based on the outcomes of a literature review, social media listening, and tele-interviews/discussions with patients, clinical experts and patient group representatives. Utility and relative importance scores were generated for each attribute and utility difference significance testing was done using the ‘unequal variances t-test’.

RESULTS: 466 patients (mean age: 68 years; females: 54%; binocular wet AMD: 28%) with an average anti-VEGF treatment duration of 3.9 years completed the survey. The most important preference domains (significant if >95% likely to be more important compared to next preference domain) were ‘treatment effects upon vision’ (non-significant) and ‘vision related symptom burdens’ (p<0.001) followed by ‘treatment risk’ (p<0.05), ‘impact on daily activities’ (p<0.05), ‘burden of clinic/hospital visits’ (p<0.001), and ‘impact on psychological well-being’. The five most important attributes came from only two domains (i) treatment effects upon vision and (ii) vision related symptom burden. These attributes in order of importance were clarity of vision, treatment effect on symptoms, quality of vision, time to treatment effect, time to re-administration. The two most important attributes were also top 2/3 attributes across countries along with ‘psychological well-being’ (Germany) and ‘impact on daily activities’ (USA and France).

CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated the potential to identify outcomes that are most relevant to patients using a respondent-friendly survey approach. The preference drivers identified may help inform future clinical development, discussions with health-technology assessment and regulatory agencies, and treatment decision making.