Abstract
Purpose:
to study the visual outcomes following intravitreal bevacizumab treatment for eyes with center-involved diabetic macular edema (CIDME)
Methods:
A retrospective study of 1000 eyes with CIDME that received intravitreal bevacizumab as their main treatment at the King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital was performed. At each follow up visit, a full ophthalmic evaluation was performed. Fluorescein angiography was obtained as per physician’s preference. Statistical analysis comparing the final and baseline visual acuity was performed.
Results:
Forty-nine eyes of 35 patients were analyzed at the time of this writing. Twenty-five patients (71.4%) were males and 10 (28.6%) were females with a mean age of 57.22 years (range 29 - 78 years; SD= 10.4). The baseline log MAR visual acuity ranged from 0.3 to 1.2 (mean ± SD= 0.53 ± 0.23) (20/40 to 20/300 Snellen equivalent range). The mean duration of follow-up was 13.6 months (range 6 - 36 months; SD= 7.6). Nineteen eyes (38.8%) had at least two lines of Snellen visual acuity improvement at final follow up.
Conclusions:
Bevacizumab may improve vision in a substantial proportion of patients with CIDME. It may be an alternative to ranibizumab as a first line therapy for this condition.
Keywords: 748 vascular endothelial growth factor •
505 edema