Abstract
Purpose :
To evaluate the incidence of acute complications following an intravitreal injection.
Methods :
A retrospective cohort study was performed at a private retinal practice in Ohio. Using the practice management software database, patients with intravitreal injections over a recent 2 year period were collected. From this group of patients, the search was further refined to include only those with unscheduled or urgent visits within 7 days of an injection. Data collected included: age, gender, eye involved, medication injected, diagnostic reason for injection, reason for urgent follow-up, length between date of injection and urgent follow-up, visual acuity on injection visit and urgent visit, intraocular pressure on day of injection and on date of urgent follow-up, and type of anesthesia during the injection.
Results :
A total of 73,286 injections were performed by 15 retinal specialists during the study period, with 441 injections (n=441) resulting in urgent follow-up visits (0.60%). The mean patient age was (72.1 ± 30.4) years, with 187 patients male (42.4%) and 254 female (57.6%).
Medications injected over the 2 years were: Eylea (60.3%), Lucentis (22.4%), Avastin (13.4%), Ozurdex (2%), Triesence (1.6%) Beovu (1.59%), Iluvien (0.2%), and Yutiq (0.03%).
Medications injected in eyes with urgent visits included: Eylea (42.9%), Avastin (37.4%), Lucentis (7.9%), Ozurdex (6.8%), Beovu (2.7%), and Triesence (2.3%).
The length in days between date of injection and urgent follow-up was a mean of 3.96 ± 2.14 days.
Reason for urgent follow-up included: blurred vision in 164 patients (37.2%), seeing flashes or floaters or having posterior vitreous detachment (PVD) in 55 (12.5%), pain in 42 (9.5%), corneal abrasion in 43 (9.8%), subconjunctival hemorrhage in 33 (7.5%), corneal dryness or foreign body sensation in 30 (6.6%), endophthalmitis in 20 (4.5%), vitreous hemorrhage in 18 (4.1%), iritis or uveitis in 11 (2.5%), miscellaneous complications in 9 (2.0%), elevated intraocular pressure in 7 (1.6%), and choroidal neovascular membrane in 4 (0.9%), retinal detachment or tear in 4 (0.9%), and traumatic cataract in 2 (0.45%).
Conclusions :
Intravitreal injections resulted in an incidence of 0.60% urgent unscheduled follow-up visits within 7 days of injection in this large retinal specialty practice. Blurred vision and symptoms of PVD were the most common causes of urgent visits.
This is a 2021 ARVO Annual Meeting abstract.