Abstract
Abstract: :
Purpose: To describe optical coherence tomography (OCT) findings after a single intravitreal injection of triamcinolone acetonide (TAAC) for the treatment of exudative age related macular degeneration (AMD). Methods: Eighteen eyes of 16 consecutive patients with subfoveal choroidal neovascularization were treated with a single intravitreal injection of 4 mg TAAC. Prospective evaluation with ophthalmologic examination, visual acuity assessment, fundus photography, indocyanine green (ICG) and fluorescein angiography (FA), and OCT were performed at baseline, 1 and 3 months after enrollment. Results: The final visual acuity was the same in 8 eyes (44 %), increased 5 or more letters in the ETDRS chart in 6 eyes (33 %) and in 4 eye (22 %) decreased 5 or more letters compared to baseline. OCT evaluation showed reduction in retinal thickness in 12 eyes (66 %), 4 eyes (22 %) remained unchanged and 2 eye (11%) showed increase in retinal thickness. FA showed moderate leakage without progression in 16 eyes (88 %), progression in one and regression of the lesion occurred in just one eye. No evident alteration was detected by ICG angiography in all eyes but one which demonstrated reduced ICG captation. There were no complications related to the procedure. Conclusion: This study suggests that short-term reduction of retinal edema can be achieved after a single intravitreal injection of TAAC for the treatment of exudative AMD. OCT demonstrated better quantitative evaluation than FA, suggesting that it may be an important tool in assessing retinal response in such proposed therapy.
Keywords: 346 choroid: neovascularization • 377 corticosteroids • 432 imaging methods (CT, FA, ICG, MRI, OCT, RTA, SLO, ultrasound)