Abstract
Purpose: :
To compare two treatment-modalities with intravitreal ranibizumab for exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in a clinical setting.
Methods: :
Retrospective analysis of 83 eyes of 74 consecutive patients treated with intravitral ranibizumab in a university hospital department. All patients received a baseline treatment of three monthly injections. The retreatment protocol included as-needed reinjections in the PRN group (n=32) and reinjections according to the Inject and Extend method in the IE group (n=51). The following parametets were recorded for each patient: age, gender, treated eye, type of choroidal neovascularization, Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study initial and final visual acuity (at 52 ± 6 weeks), number of injections, and number of follow-up visits.
Results: :
Groups were not significantly different at baseline for age (p=0.33), gender (p=0.42), initial visual acuity (p=0.99) and type of choroidal neovascularization (p=0.81). At 1 year, there was a significant improvement of visual acuity in the IE group (+6.1 ± 17.8 letters, p=0.01) but not in the PRN group (+0.3 ± 27.3 letters, p=0.98). Eyes in the IE group were given significantly more injections (6.8 ± 0,2 vs 4.6 ± 0,2, p < 0.01). We did not find any significant difference for the visual acuity improvement between our groups (p=0.2). The number of follow-up visits was similar (p= 0.96).
Conclusions: :
In our study the Inject and Extend protocol was more effective than the PRN method for the treatment of exudative AMD with ranibizumab.
Keywords: age-related macular degeneration