Abstract
Purpose:
To evaluate the therapeutic effect of intravitreal injection of aflibercept in patients with polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV).
Methods:
Twenty eyes of 19 consecutive patients with PCV, which had no previous treatment, received intravitreal injection of aflibercept (2.0mg) monthly for 3 months in this prospective study. At baseline, 1month and 3months after the first intravitreal injection, all patients underwent eye examinations including the best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), simultaneous fluorescein angiography and indocyanine green angiography, and a spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). The main outcome measures were the change in the polypoidal lesions, BCVA, and central retinal thickness (CRT).
Results:
At one and three month after the first intravitreal injection of aflibercept, polypoidal lesions completely resolved in 11 eyes (55%) and 15 eyes (75%), partially resolved in 6 eyes (30%) and 5 eyes (25%), and did not changed in 3 eyes (15%) and 0 eyes (0%) , respectively. Although the branching vascular network remained in all eyes, retinal exudative changes completely resolved in 18eyes (90%) at 3 months and CRT decreased significantly (397.3 ± 99.5μm at baseline and 241.6 ± 68.3μm at 3 months, p < 0.0001, paired t - test). BCVA (log MAR) significantly improved from 0.43 ± 0.37 at baseline to 0.34 ± 0.33 at 3 months (p = 0.012, paired t-test).
Conclusions:
Three consecutive monthly injection of aflibercept showed high efficacy on the regression of polyps and retinal exudation, and improvement of BCVA at 3 months of follow-up in eyes with PCV.
Keywords: 412 age-related macular degeneration