Abstract
Purpose :
To evaluate the effects of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (Anti-VEGF) injections in patients with diabetic macular edema (DME) on the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness.
Methods :
Inclusion criteria included patients of either sex with type 2 diabetes mellitus who developed DME. Exclusion criteria included children, patients with very dense cataracts precluding visualization of the fundus or proper assessment of visual acuity, patients with other types of retinopathies, patients who had previous laser or ocular surgery, and patients with ischemia (macular or retinal) or proliferative diabetic retinopathy detected on fluorescein angiography. Fellow eyes of the included patients were used as controls. All the patients underwent spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) pre-injection and once (one to four weeks) following intravitreal ranibizumab injection. These scans were marked as the patient’s baseline and were used for referencing the subsequent scans using the “follow-up” function of the SD-OCT, assuring us that the scans were performed in the same position. All images were taken as close to the optic disc as possible to ensure, to the best extent possible, that the same retinal area was being scanned.
Results :
35 (70%) patients were females, and 15 (30%) of them were males. 26 patients (52%) had their right eye injected, and 24 patients (48%) had their left eye injected. The mean age of the patients was 60±7.9 years (range = 43:75 years). The superior quadrant of the RNFL showed a mean increase of 1.2 microns (standard deviation (SD) = 38.4, 95% confidence interval (CI) = -9.7:12.1, p-value = 0.829). The inferior quadrant showed a mean increase of 7.5 microns (SD = 35.6, 95% CI = -2.6:17.6, p-value = 0.144). The nasal quadrant showed a mean increase of 8.3 microns (SD = 23, 95% CI = 1.8:14.9, p-value = 0.014). The temporal quadrant showed a mean increase of 4.1 microns (SD = 33.2, 95% CI = -5.3:13.6, p-value = 0.386).
Conclusions :
There is no statistically significant correlation between intravitreal injections of ranibizumab and the RNFL thickness.
This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Imaging in the Eye Conference, held in New Orleans, LA, April 21-22, 2023.