Abstract
Purpose :
To evaluate the dynamic changes of the aqueous humor levels of inflammatory factors between patients receiving intravitreal ranibizumab injection (IRI) and aflibercept injection (IAI) in patients with exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Methods :
The study was performed on 30 eyes with AMD that were scheduled to receive 3 doses of IRI (15 eyes) or IAI (15 eyes) at monthly intervals. Aqueous humor samples were collected when monthly injection was done. To assess the improvement of vision, the best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was measured. To assess the morphological improvement, central macular thickness (CMT) was calculated by optical coherence tomography (OCT). The concentrations of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1), platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF)-AA, interleukin (IL)-6, and IL-8 were measured in aqueous humor samples from the 30 AMD patients and 10 cataract patients (as controls) by the suspension array method.
Results :
Measurement of the aqueous humor cytokine levels showed significantly higher concentrations of VEGF, MCP-1, PDGF-AA, and IL-8 in the AMD group than in the control group (p <0.05). In the AMD group, aqueous levels of the inflammatory factors (MCP-1, PDGF-AA, IL-6, and IL-8) were significantly correlated with each other. In both the IRI and the IAI treated eyes, BCVA and CMT improved significantly (p <0.05). In IRI and IAI-treated eyes, the aqueous level of VEGF showed a significant decrease at 1 and 2 months compared with baseline (p <0.05). In IAI-treated eyes, the aqueous level of MCP-1 showed a significant decrease at 2 months (p =0.035) compared with baseline. In IAI-treated eyes, the aqueous level of PDGF-AA also showed a significant decrease at 2 months (p =0.046)
Conclusions :
These findings suggest that the inflammatory factors were involved in the pathogenesis of AMD, and influenced via different mechanisms by IRI and IAI.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.