Bevacizumab improved vision, macular edema in study of RVO patients

Bevacizumab improved vision, macular edema in study of RVO patients

OSN SuperSite Breaking News 10/24/2007

Bevacizumab improved visual acuity and central macular edema symptoms in patients with retinal vein occlusion within 9 weeks after treatment, according to a prospective study by researchers in Germany.

Andreas Stahl, MD, and colleagues at University of Freiburg evaluated the 9-week responses to a single injection of Avastin (bevacizumab, Genentech) in 14 central retinal vein occlusion (RVO) patients and seven branch RVO patients.

At follow-up, the researchers found that mean visual acuity for the 21 patients had increased an average of 2.4 lines (P < .01) over baseline. Also, the improvement in visual acuity was in concert with a decrease in central retinal thickness, according to the study.

The best improvement in visual acuity was reached between 3 and 6 weeks post-injection and began to decrease from 6 to 9 weeks, the authors noted.

"This [visual acuity] decrease was precipitated by an increase in [central macular edema] between week 3 and 6," they said.

In subgroup analyses, patients who received a bevacizumab injection within the first 3 months of RVO showed an average four-line gain in vision, compared with an average gain of 1.8 lines in patients treated between 4 and 6 months after RVO and a gain of 2.5 lines for those treated later than 6 months after RVO onset, according to the study.

"We did not observe any short-term adverse effects during our study," the authors noted.

The study is published in the October issue of Graefe's Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology.