Purpose COVID-19 emerged in the end of 2019 and was declared a worldwide pandemic shortly after. Social distancing and lockdowns resulted in lower compliance in intravitreal injections and office visits. We aimed to assess clinical outcomes among patients who missed these visits compared to those who arrived as planned. Methods Patients who missed or were late to office visits or intravitreal injections were defined as non-adherent and were compared to adherent patients. Our main outcomes were the need for subsequent injections, mean change in best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), and central macular thickness (CMT). Results This study included 77 patients (24 adherent and 53 non-adherent). The mean BCVA remained stable during the study period for the adherent group ( p = 0.159) and worsened in the non-adherent group ( p < 0.001). Changes in CMT and maximum thickness were not significant for either group. A higher proportion of patients in the non-adherent group needed subsequent intravitreal injections (49% vs 20%, p = 0.014). Conclusion The findings demonstrate the negative implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and the effect of deferring bevacizumab injections among individuals with age-related macular degeneration. This emphasizes the importance of a scheduled follow-up, also during a pandemic. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10792-022-02337-y.

Purpose: To compare results of two ophthalmic viscosurgical devices (OVDs) - Viscoat (a dispersive OVD, Alcon) and FR-Pro (a viscous-cohesive OVD, Rayner), in phacoemulsification surgery. Methods: A prospective randomized controlled study. Patients undergoing phacoemulsification were randomly assigned to receive one of the two OVDs. Exclusion criteria were age under 40, preoperative endothelial cell count (ECC) below 1,500 cells/mm2 and an eventful surgery. The primary outcome was change in ECC from baseline to postoperative month-one and month-three. Secondary outcomes were the difference between ECC at postoperative month-one and month-three, changes in IOP and occurrence of an IOP spike≥30 mmHg after surgery. Results: The study included 84 eyes - 43 in the Viscoat group and 41 in the FR-Pro group. Mean cell density loss at month-one and month-three was 17.0% and 19.2%, respectively, for the Viscoat group and 18.4% and 18.8%, respectively, for the FR-Pro group, with no statistically significant difference between the groups (p=0.772 and p=0.671, respectively). The mean ECC difference between the month-one and month-three visits was 50.5 cells/mm2 and was not statistically significant (p=0.285). One eye in each group had an IOP spike≥30 mmHg, both normalized by postoperative week-one. Conclusions: Viscoat and FR-Pro have comparable results following phacoemulsification surgery, suggesting that while FR-Pro is not a dispersive OVD, its endothelial cell protection may be comparable to one, perhaps due to the addition of sorbitol. Furthermore, a one-month follow-up of ECC seems sufficient in such trials.