MONARCH

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Monitoring AMD at Home (the MONARCH study)

Sponsor: The Queen’s University Belfast

Status: In Follow Up

Funder: National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment Programme (HTA) (15/97/02)

Wet age-related macular degeneration (neovascular AMD, nAMD) is the commonest cause of blindness in the UK. Most patients need a series of monthly injections followed by a period of regular check-up visits in case more injections are required. AMD can often flare up after a period when treatment has not been required so check-ups are usually needed for several years.

Home monitoring to detect the need for treatment could mean that patients would not need regular hospital check-ups. MONARCH is a diagnostic test-accuracy study designed to find out whether home monitoring tests can detect when neovascular AMD needs to be treated as well as the surveillance tests carried out at hospitals check-ups.

We have chosen three home monitoring tests for MONARCH: the first is a paper booklet of “reading tests”. The other two tests are software applications that run on an iPod touch.

Patients having treatment or check-ups at participating NHS hospitals will be invited to take part. They will be provided with an iPod touch and a mobile broadband device and will be asked to perform the home monitoring tests weekly at home over a period of 1 to 2 years. We will also interview some patients and their carers to find out their experiences of performing the tests as part of an integrated qualitative study being carried out at select participating hospitals.

We will perform the study in 6 different hospitals around the United Kingdom and aim to recruit 400 participants.

This study is kindly supported by:

  •          Visumetrics AB
  •          Genentech Inc, a member of the Roche Group
  •          KeepSight

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NIHR Award Information

Contact information

Co-Chief Investigator: Dr Ruth Hogg & Prof. Barney Reeves

Sponsor: The Queen’s University Belfast

E-mail:  MONARCH-study@bristol.ac.uk 

Participating sites include:

Royal Victoria Hospital (Belfast) – 02890 634252

James Paget University Hospital (Great Yarmouth) – 01493 453856

Moorfields Eye Hospital (London) – 02072 533411 Ext. 4451

Royal Liverpool & Broadgreen University Hospital (Liverpool) – 0151 7063986

University Hospital Southampton – 02381 204606

Gloucester Royal Hospital – 0300 422 3853