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Anti-VEGF treatment has dramatic impact on vision and life quality of AMD patients
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BARCELONA — Anti-VEGF treatment with ranibizumab provides immediate, intensive, stable benefits in the vision and life quality of patients with AMD, "a disease that has the same dramatic emotional and social impact as severe stroke," a speaker said here.
"Specifically in Europe, it has been shown that the prevalence of AMD in people 65 years of age or older is 15% nowadays and is expected to grow to 20% in 2020 and to 28% in 2050. As has been shown by Hyman, 7.5 million people will suffer from AMD-related vision loss in Europe by 2020. So it is a significant problem, for people and for public health," Ursula Schmidt-Erfurth, MD, said at the Cataract and Macular Disease Symposium of the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons meeting.
The MARINA and ANCHOR studies showed the benefits of monthly injections of Lucentis (ranibizumab, Genentech); however, because the largest gains in visual acuity are achieved in the first 3 months of therapy, a maintenance therapy on a less-frequent dosing regimen is feasible after the first loading dose.
"Following the initial loading dose of three monthly injections, a PRN regimen is only slightly inferior in efficacy to monthly treatment. It is the second best and most realistic option," she said.
Constant monitoring of disease progression with spectral domain optical coherence tomography is mandatory to establish a correct as-needed re-treatment regimen.