Abstract
Purpose: :
In the pivotal MARINA and ANCHOR trials of ranibizumab for neovascular (wet) age-related macular degeneration (AMD), ranibizumab-treated patients, on average, demonstrated improvement from baseline visual acuity (VA). During those trials, some patients underwent cataract surgery. We performed a retrospective analysis to explore whether cataract surgery was beneficial in wet AMD patients undergoing ranibizumab therapy.
Methods: :
We analyzed eyes receiving ranibizumab (pooled 0.3 mg and 0.5 mg doses) of MARINA and ANCHOR patients who had cataract surgery. For this analysis, VA prior to cataract surgery was defined as baseline. Mean change from pre-surgery baseline VA, time to the first injection post surgery, number of injections post surgery, and mean follow-up time post surgery were assessed.
Results: :
Of 758 pooled ranibizumab-treated patients, cataract surgery was performed on 23 eyes. Three months post surgery, mean (SEM) VA improved by 11.4 (3.3) letters in ranibizumab-treated eyes (n=21), with a 95% confidence interval ranging from +4.6 letters to +18.3 letters. The average time from the first ranibizumab treatment to the time of surgery was 431 days, following an average of 13.6 injections. The first post surgery injection of ranibizumab was performed, on average, 36 days after surgery.
Conclusions: :
In MARINA and ANCHOR, cataract surgery resulted in greater than two lines of VA improvement and appeared to be beneficial for eyes undergoing ranibizumab therapy for neovascular AMD.
Keywords: age-related macular degeneration • choroid: neovascularization • cataract