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Noemi Lois, Christina Campbell, Norman Waugh, Augusto Azuara-Blanco, Mandy Maredza, Hema Mistry, Danny McAuley, Nachiketa Acharya, Tariq M Aslam, Clare Bailey, Victor Chong, Louise Downey, Haralabos Eleftheriadis, Samia Fatum, Sheena George, Faruque Ghanchi, Markus Groppe, Robin Hamilton, Geeta Menon, Ahmed Saad, Sobha Sivaprasad, Marianne Shiew, David H Steel, James Stephen Talks, Paul Doherty, Clíona McDowell & Mike Clarke.

Noemi Lois ^1,*, Christina Campbell ², Norman Waugh ³, Augusto Azuara-Blanco ⁴, Mandy Maredza ³, Hema Mistry ⁵, Danny McAuley ^1,6, Nachiketa Acharya ⁷, Tariq M Aslam ^8,9, Clare Bailey ¹⁰, Victor Chong ¹¹, Louise Downey ¹², Haralabos Eleftheriadis ¹³, Samia Fatum ¹⁴, Sheena George ¹⁵, Faruque Ghanchi ¹⁶, Markus Groppe ¹⁷, Robin Hamilton ¹⁸, Geeta Menon ¹⁹, Ahmed Saad ^20,21, Sobha Sivaprasad ¹⁸, Marianne Shiew ²², David H Steel ^23,24, James Stephen Talks ²⁵, Paul Doherty ², Clíona McDowell ², Mike Clarke ^2,4

¹ The Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK
² Northern Ireland Clinical Trials Unit (NICTU), Belfast, UK
³ Division of Health Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
⁴ Centre for Public Health, Queens University, Belfast, UK
⁵ Warwick Clinical Trials Unit, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
⁶ The Regional Intensive Care Unit, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, UK
⁷ Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Sheffield, UK
⁸ The Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, Manchester, UK
⁹ Division of Pharmacy and Optometry, School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
¹⁰ Bristol Eye Hospital, Bristol, UK
¹¹ Royal Free Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
¹² Hull and East Yorkshire Hospital, Hull and East Yorkshire NHS Trust, Hull, UK
¹³ King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
¹⁴ John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK
¹⁵ Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
¹⁶ Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Bradford, UK
¹⁷ Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Buckinghamshire NHS Trust, Aylesbury, UK
¹⁸ National Institute for Health and Care Research Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre, Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
¹⁹ Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Camberley, UK
²⁰ James Cook University Hospital, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Middlesbrough, UK
²¹ Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt
²² Hinchingbrooke Hospital North West Anglia NHS Trust, Huntingdon, UK
²³ Sunderland Eye Infirmary, Sunderland, UK
²⁴ Bioscience Institute, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
²⁵ Newcastle Eye Centre, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
^* Corresponding author Email: n.lois@qub.ac.uk

Disclosure of interests

Full disclosure of interes ts: Completed ICMJE forms for all authors, including all related interests, are available in the toolkit on the NIHR Journals Library report publication page at https://doi.org/10.3310/SZKI2484.

Primary conflicts of interest: Augusto Azuara-Blanco is a member of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Prioritisation Committee B (2020 to present). Danny McAuley is the NIHR/Medical Research Council Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) Programme Director and member of the EME Strategy Advisory Committee, EME Funding Committee member and EME Funding Committee Remit and Competitiveness Sub-Group (2019–present). Danny McAuley is also a former member of the NIHR/UK Research and Innovation COVID-19 reviewing committee (2020–20) and the HTA General Committee (2016–18) and Commissioning Committees (2013–16). Clare Bailey has been an ad-hoc advisor for Bayer AG (Leverkusen, Germany), Novartis AG (Basel, Switzerland), Alimera Sciences (Alpharetta, GA, USA), Roche (F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Basel, Switzerland), Boehringer Ingelheim (Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH, Ingelheim am rhein, Germany) and Janssen (Janssen Global Services, LLC, Beerse, Belgium). Victor Chong is an employee of Janssen but his role in this study is unrelated to his employment with Janssen and, thus, the content of this manuscript is not endorsed by Janssen. He has also received speaker fees from Quantel Medical (Cournon-d’Auvergne, France). Louise Downey has performed advisory board work for Bayer, Novartis, Allergan (now part of AbbVie Inc., North Chicago, IL, USA), Alimera Sciences and Alcon (Geneva, Switzerland). She has also received travel grants from Bayer, Novartis and Allergan, and research studies sponsored by Bayer, Novartis, AbbVie, Roche and Alimera Sciences. Haralabos Eleftheriadis has been an ad hoc advisor for Novartis and Bayer, received educational travel grants from Novartis, Bayer and Allergan and has given a remunerated talk for IRIDEX (IRIDEX Corporation, Mountain View, CA, USA). Faruque Ghanchi has had advisory roles for Alimera Sciences, Allergan, Apellis (Apellis Pharmaceuticals Inc., Watham, MA, USA), Bayer, Boehringer Ingleheim, Novartis and Roche, and received travel grants from Allergan, Novartis and Roche. Robin Hamilton has received research grants from Novartis and Bayer, and received travel expenses from and attended advisory board meetings of Novartis, Bayer, Roche, Allergan and Ellex (Mawson Lakes, SA, Australia). Sobha Sivaprasad has received research grants and travel fees from and attended advisory board meetings of Novartis, Allergan, Bayer, Optos (Optos Inc. Marlborough, MA, USA), Boehringer Ingleheim, Heidelberg Engineering (Heidelberg Engineering GmbH, Heidelberg, Germany), Roche, Oxurion (Oxurion NV, Leuven, Belgium), Oculis (Oculis SA, Lausanne, Switzerland) and Biogen (Biogen Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA). Sobha Sivaprasad was a former NIHR HTA Commissioning Board member (2017–2021), Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of Sight UK (May 2018–present), Scientific Advisory Committee Member of Retina UK (August 2019–present), Trustee of the Macular Society (August 2019–present), as well as Chair of the Scientific Committee of the UK Royal College of Ophthalmologists (May 2020–present). David H Steel acted as a consultant to Alcon, Gyroscope (Gyroscope Therapeutics Limited, London, UK) BVI® (Waltham, MA, USA) and Roche, and received research funding from Bayer, Alcon, Gyroscope, DORC (Dutch Ophthalmic Research Center B.V., Zuidland, the Netherlands) and Boehringer Ingelheim. James S Talks has received travel grants from Bayer and research support from Novartis. Mike Clarke is a member of the HTA Prioritisation Committee B Methods Group (2019 to present) and a former member of the HTA General Committee (2016–19). None of the authors has any commercial interest in any of the diagnostic or treatment devices used in this trial, including the lasers.