ArcticDx (Canada)

Vickers (1) offers little substantive criticism, but we address three items he mentions: ( i ) our choice of clinical endpoint, ( ii ) the potential for multiple-testing false positives, and ( iii ) the need for additional study. An important distinction of our study (2) is the use of neovascular AMD (nvAMD) as the endpoint. In 2001, the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) showed that nutritional supplements reduce progression to overall advanced AMD. This main effect was due to reduced progression to nvAMD, with no impact on progression to the geographic atrophy (GA) form of advanced AMD (3). As Vickers notes (1), Seddon et al. (4) confirmed this pharmacogenetic interaction. However, he misquotes or misunderstands Seddon’s conclusion, who states that “similar results were seen for NV subtype but not GA” (4). Vickers notes that work by Awh et … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: tibs{at}stanford.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1