This study aimed to investigate the pre- and post-surgery reading ability in patients with idiopathic epiretinal membrane (ERM) to evaluate whether measurement of reading performance is a helpful test in addition to visual acuity (VA) as an assessment measure. This prospective observational study involved 42 eyes of 40 patients with idiopathic ERM. Best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), reading ability, and metamorphopsia score were evaluated at baseline and at 3, 6, and 12 months post-surgery. As the outcome measure, the reading ability of each patient (i.e., overall performance) was examined with MNREAD-J, the Japanese version of the MNREAD reading acuity (RA) charts, to determine RA, critical print size (CPS), and maximum reading speed (MRS). Generally, a difference of 0.2 logMAR or more is considered a significant change in BCVA. Thus, as a subgroup analysis, we additionally evaluated the BCVA and reading ability of the patients with a BCVA difference of 0.1 logMAR or less between at baseline and at 12 months post-surgery. Relative to their values at baseline, the subjects exhibited significantly improved BCVA, RA, and CPS throughout the post-surgery examination period (P < 0.001) and significantly improved MRS at 12 months post-surgery (P = 0.04). No significant change in the vertical metamorphopsia score was observed throughout the post-surgery follow-up period. However, and compared to the value at baseline, significant improvements in the horizontal metamorphopsia score were observed at 3, 6 (P < 0.05), and 12 months (P < 0.001) post-surgery. In the subgroup analysis of the 23 eyes that exhibited a BCVA improvement of 0.1 logMAR or less, the median BCVA did not change, but the median RA and CPS improved by 0.2 logMAR. Our findings showed that the surgical removal of ERM improves reading ability, even when the BCVA score does not improve. The measurement of reading performance appears to be a helpful test in addition to VA as a measure for assessing the surgical removal of ERM.

中文翻译：

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评估视网膜前膜患者手术前后的阅读能力：一项前瞻性观察研究

这项研究旨在调查特发性视网膜前膜（ERM）患者术前和术后的阅读能力，以评估对阅读性能的测量除作为视力（VA）的评估手段以外是否还有帮助。这项前瞻性观察研究涉及40例特发性ERM患者的42只眼。在基线时以及术后3、6和12个月评估最佳矫正视力（BCVA），阅读能力和变态分数。作为结果衡量指标，使用日文版MNREAD阅读敏锐度（RA）图表MNREAD-J检查了每个患者的阅读能力（即总体表现），以确定RA，临界打印尺寸（CPS）和最大值阅读速度（MRS）。通常，将0.2 logMAR或更大的差异视为BCVA的重大变化。从而，作为亚组分析，我们还评估了基线和手术后12个月之间BCVA差异小于等于0.1 logMAR的患者的BCVA和阅读能力。相对于其基线值，受试者在整个术后检查期间表现出BCVA，RA和CPS显着改善（P <0.001），并且在术后12个月时MRS显着改善（P = 0.04）。在整个手术后的随访期内，垂直变态评分没有明显变化。但是，与基线时的值相比，在术后3、6（P <0.05）和12个月（P <0.001）观察到水平变形评分的显着改善。在对BCVA改善不超过0.1 logMAR的23只眼的亚组分析中，中位数BCVA不变，但中位数RA和CPS提高了0.2 logMAR。我们的研究结果表明，即使BCVA评分没有改善，ERM的手术切除也可以提高阅读能力。除了将VA作为评估ERM手术切除率的一种方法外，阅读性能的测量似乎是一种有用的测试。