Bevacizumab generating increased interest, expectations

PARIS — A proliferation of data and recently published papers are confirming both the safety and efficacy of intravitreal bevacizumab use for the treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration, according to a symposium on AMD held here during the French Society of Ophthalmology meeting.

“We are currently in the stage of collecting all the clinical data, and hopefully a multicenter randomized prospective clinical study will soon be started to compare Avastin (bevacizumab, Genentech) with the standards of care,” said Christos Haritoglou, MD.

Dr. Haritoglou said the intravitreal version of the cancer drug is “safe in all concentrations that have been used and it does not penetrate the retina.” Some studies have shown that its efficacy in reducing retinal thickness and leakage plays a role in halting the progression of visual loss.

“Positive results are reliable, but the problem is that the use in ophthalmology is still an off-label use,” Dr. Haritoglou said.

He said ophthalmologists have “great expectations” for the drug since it is much less expensive than the alternatives that are currently available. “This could give new hope to patients who suffer so much,” he said.

Aside from neovascular AMD, the drug has also been studied for the treatment of proliferative diabetic retinopathy, neovascular glaucoma and neovascularization of the iris.

“There are potentially many fields of application, and we need further investigations to find out which patients can benefit more from the use of this drug,” Dr. Haritoglou said.