The Burden of Retinal Venous Occlusion: An Assessment of Fellow Eyes in 1000 Cases

Thirty percent of all RVO patients had less than or equal to baseline vision in the fellow eye. Among unilateral RVO cases, 1.5%/year developed fellow-eye RVO. These findings have implications for cost-utility analysis, because bilateral vision loss yields greater QALY loss and an increased financial burden compared with unilateral loss. Referent to total therapeutic QALY gain (100%), if a treated RVO was always considered the better-seeing eye, the actual clinical scenario demonstrates that the average CRVO patient gains 38% as much value and the average HRVO/BRVO patient gains 37% as much.