Abstract
Purpose: :
To describe the prevalence of blindess in patients treated with off label intravitreal bevacizumab for treatment requiring retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in the blindness prevention program (BPP) established in May 2009 in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of two secondary healthcare hospitals in Mexico with no access to laser o cryotherapy.
Methods: :
This is a prospective analysis of 161 premature infants with birth weight < 2000 grams or gestational age < 34 weeks, admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of two secondary healthcare hospital in a one year period. The infants underwent eye examinations between their 4th and 6th week of life, patients diagnosed with treatment requiring retinopathy of prematurity (stage 3, prethreshold or threshold) were injected with 0.03cc of off label intravitreal bevacizumab under topical anesthesia, follow up was performed with complete ophthalmological and systemical examinations.
Results: :
During period between May of 2009 and May of 2010, 161 patients (322 eyes) with risk factors to develop ROP underwent ophthalmological exploration, 29 eyes (9.31%) required treatment after developing stage 3 ROP. After a one year period, none of the treated eyes developed blindness nor serious ocular complications.
Conclusions: :
In this small sample, our low level of blindness prevalence in patients diagnosed with treatment requiring ROP treated with bevacizumab suggest that intravitreal antiangiogenic therapy seems to be a promising treatment as monotherapy for ROP patients with no access to technological devices as laser or cryo to provide conventional treatment for this devastating disease. Multicenter comparative studies are required to regulate its use.
Keywords: retinopathy of prematurity • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: treatment/prevention assessment/controlled clinical trials • retinal neovascularization