Geographic atrophy featured across EURETINA 2026 scientific programme

VIENNA: Geographic atrophy (GA), the advanced form of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), is the subject of at least 4 dedicated sessions across the 26th Congress of the European Society of Retina Specialists (EURETINA), running October 1 to 4 in Vienna, alongside a keynote lecture on the broader dry AMD landscape.

Interest in GA has intensified in retina practice since the 2023 US approvals of the complement inhibitors pegcetacoplan (Syfovre; Apellis Pharmaceuticals) and avacincaptad pegol (Izervay; Astellas Pharma), the first therapies cleared to slow GA lesion growth. A 2026 preference study covered by Ophthalmology Times found that lesion growth rate reduction remains the single biggest driver of retina specialists' treatment decisions, accounting for 40.9% to 52.1% of decision-making weight depending on patient profile, with specialists showing far greater tolerance for treatment risk in patients with foveal-threatening lesions than in those with extrafoveal disease.

Thursday: patient selection and a keynote on dry AMD

The GA-focused programming opens Thursday, October 1, from 12:00 to 13:00, with an instructional course titled, "Optimizing Patient Selection With Geographic Atrophy for Potential Current and Future Therapies," chaired by Roberto Gallego-Pinazo, MD, a retina specialist at Oftalvist clinics in Valencia, Spain, and Jordi Monés, MD, PhD, director of the Institut de la Màcula in Barcelona, Spain.

The kind of questions such a session typically works through were previewed earlier this year on Modern Retina's Wills Retina Report podcast, where cohosts Carl D. Regillo, MD, and Sunir J. Garg, MD, both of Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia, discussed who to treat and when. Regillo said he favors treating earlier disease with faster-growing lesions, since both approved complement inhibitors slow GA progression rather than reverse it. Garg noted that reticular pseudodrusen, visible on near-infrared imaging, serves as a marker for both faster progression and elevated risk of choroidal neovascularization.

Later that day, from 16:15 to 17:20, Frank Holz, MD, will deliver the Euretina Lecture, titled, "The Dark Side of the Moon: New Horizons in Dry AMD." The lecture is one of the congress's keynote lectures and covers the broader dry AMD landscape from which GA management questions stem.

Saturday: AI-based management and non-neovascular AMD

On Saturday, October 3, from 11:30 to 12:30, two parallel sessions will approach GA from different angles. A Euretina Session titled, "Non-Neovascular Macular Degeneration," is co-chaired by Frank G. Holz, MD, and Sandrine Zweifel, MD. Concurrently, an instructional course, "AI in Clinical Practice: A Practical Patient-Centered Roadmap for Geographic Atrophy Management," is chaired by R. Schwartz, MD.

AI-based functional prediction is an active area of GA research heading into the congress. Steffen Schmitz-Valckenberg, MD, of the University of Utah's John A. Moran Eye Center, presented data earlier this year on a model that predicts retinal sensitivity directly from OCT scans in patients with GA. In a Q&A with the Eye Care Network, Schmitz-Valckenberg said the model was trained on fellow eyes from the OAKS trial (NCT03525613) and validated across three additional multicenter trials, including DERBY (NCT03525600), and could eventually support faster, noninvasive functional assessment in both clinical trials and routine practice. He cautioned that a new therapeutic intervention could itself alter retinal structure enough to interfere with a model's predictions.

Related imaging research published this year adds further context for the non-neovascular AMD session: one study found a border-zone lifetime gradient on fluorescence lifetime imaging ophthalmoscopy correlated with 5-year GA growth rate, while another identified thin choroid as the key factor behind ungradable lesion borders on ultrawidefield autofluorescence imaging.

Later that afternoon, from 14:15 to 15:15, a symposium titled, "Optimising Vision in AMD Patients With GA Through Surgical Intervention," is chaired by Boris Stanzel, MD, a vitreoretinal surgeon known for his work on retinal pigment epithelium transplantation, and Anat Loewenstein, MD, chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and professor of ophthalmology and vice dean at Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine.

Saturday's schedule also includes an industry-sponsored educational session, listed on the programme as a Euretina Interactive Medical Education (IME) session titled, "Preserving Vision in Dry AMD & Geographic Atrophy Patients Through Early Detection & Timely Intervention."

Two investigational gene therapies for GA have reported new data this year. Ocugen's OCU410, a modifier gene therapy, reduced GA lesion growth by 31% at 12 months in the phase 2 ArMaDa study. Complement Therapeutics dosed the first patient in a phase 1/2 trial of its complement-targeting gene therapy CTx001, the Opti-GAIN study. Both companies have a presence at Euretina Innovation Spotlight (EIS) 2026, a co-located but separate satellite event running alongside the main congress: Complement Therapeutics is presenting on CTx001 specifically for GA, while Ocugen's session covers its modifier gene therapy platform across retinitis pigmentosa, Stargardt disease, and GA.

What it signals

Taken together, the sessions span the practical questions retina specialists are weighing around GA: how to select patients for existing and investigational therapies, how artificial intelligence tools might support diagnosis and monitoring, and what role surgical intervention has in managing vision loss associated with the disease. Beyond the clinical questions, the cost of paying for GA treatment remains a live issue for many practices, from Medicare coverage limitations to out-of-pocket costs.

EURETINA 2026 runs October 1 to 4 in Vienna. Registration and the full scientific programme are available at euretina.org.