Abstract
Purpose :
Diabetic macular edema (DME) is a complication of diabetes that can lead to blindness if left untreated. Currently there are no biomarkers available for prediction of treatment response in eyes with DME. In this study, we sought to identify vitreous protein biomarkers that correlate with the change in visual acuity in response to intravitreal injection of triamcinolone (Triesence®).
Methods :
Vitreous aspirates (50-120μL) were obtained from patients treated for DME with intravitreal injection (Triesence®) in a study approved by the institutional review board. Vitreous samples were acquired immediately prior to intravitreal injection. 10 samples obtained from 9 eyes of 9 patients between 10/1/10 and 4/7/15 were analyzed by Reverse Phase Protein Microarray. The samples were tested for 76 different protein biomarkers. A linear regression analysis was performed to elucidate the relationship between the baseline (pretreatment) biomarker levels and the change in visual acuity at approximately 2-3 month (50-100days) after treatment.
Results :
Out of 76 biomarkers, the baseline levels of 14 biomarkers, including p38 MAPK T180/Y182 and VEGF, were found to show statistically significant correlation (p < 0.0001) with the change in visual acuity at 50-100 days after treatment. These biomarkers were also highly predictive of the visual acuity outcome with R2 values ranging between 0.86 and 0.90.
Conclusions :
Our results suggest that some protein biomarkers may be able to predict the visual acuity outcome in response to intravitreal injection of triamcinolone in eyes with DME. Further analysis of 14 biomarkers identified in this study is required to select a biomarker panel that can potentially be used in the management of DME.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.