RWC 2025: Katherine Talcott, MD, discusses the potential connection of auto-immune conditions to AMD

Katherine Talcott, a retina specialist at Cole Eye Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, presented at the Retinal World Congress 2025 meeting. In her presentation and in her conversation with Ophthalmology Times, Talcott discussed the connection between autoimmune diseases and age-related macular degeneration (AMD), emphasizing the role of inflammation in AMD development.

This large database study explored the link between autoimmune problems and AMD. She and her colleagues discovered that most autoimmune diseases increased the risk of AMD compared to those without such conditions. By creating cohorts within the data of patients with autoimmune diseases, she found they were more likely to present with AMD at different stages.

The hypothesis-generating study raised several questions: Do patients with autoimmune diseases develop AMD at an earlier age? Do those with more active autoimmune diseases experience more advanced AMD?

The research used a de-identified database from national hospital systems, allowing the team of researchers to create large patient cohorts while acknowledging the limitations of not being able to verify individual patient data. Talcott highlighted the importance of inflammation in AMD, suggesting it was not solely age-related but significantly influenced by inflammatory processes.

She proposed several potential screening recommendations, including more frequent AMD screenings for patients with autoimmune diseases. She suggested that rheumatologists and primary care doctors should more actively refer these patients to ophthalmologists. She also shared that this and future research may lead recommendations for AMD screenings, which may include placing optical coherence tomography (OCT) machines in rheumatology offices or primary care sites. This would enable better screening and early detection of AMD in patients with autoimmune conditions.

She noted that changes in the retina, such as drusen in patients in their 50s, could indicate AMD and warranted further investigation. The study's key insights emphasized the complex relationship between autoimmune diseases, inflammation, and macular degeneration. Future research plans included investigating whether autoimmune disease patients develop AMD earlier and if more active autoimmune conditions correlate with more advanced AMD stages.