Purpose:
To investigate the effect of intravitreal Bevacizumab by evaluating pre- and postinjection visual acuity, multifocal ERG (mfERG), optic coherence tomography (OCT), contrast sensitivity and furthermore correlate these measures to fixation stability in patients with exudative AMD.
Methods:
25 patients (25 eyes) with exudative AMD and no history of previous treatment with photodynamic therapy, argon laser or anti- VEGF were included. Patients were treated with 1.25 mg intravitreal Avastin in one eye. Pre- and postinjection (1 week, 6 weeks and 3 months) visual acuity (ETDRS score), contrastsensitivity (Pelli Robson Chart), OCT (Zeiss Stratus), ERG (Veris Science 5.2.3X), mfERG (Veris Science 5.2.3X) and fixation stability (Eye-Link System, Senso Motoric Instruments GmbH) were performed. Mean amplitudes and implicittimes of the mfERG responses within the three innermost of the six rings were analyzed.Fixation stability was measured monocularly and binocularly by two headborn infrared cameras measuring horizontal and vertical movements of the eyes. These angular movements were transformed into linear distances at the retinal plane.
Results:
Preliminary results 1 week postinjection shows a significant decrease in retinal thickness as well as a significant increase in visual acuity. Mean retinal thickness at baseline was 316.7 microns compared to 250.4 microns 1 week after the injection (p=0.02, paired t-test). Mean visual acuity at baseline was 55.1 ETDRS score and 61 ETDRS score 1 week after the injection (p=0.01, paired t-test). Figure 1 shows an example of pre- and 1 week postinjection multifocal ERG.
Conclusions:
One week results show a significant reduction in the macular thickness as well as an improvement in visual acuity. Whether this trend will further improve during the 3 months study will be presented. Furthermore, the data will be correlated to the macular function evaluated by fixation stability and multifocal ERG measurements.
Keywords: age-related macular degeneration • electrophysiology: clinical • drug toxicity/drug effects