Bevacizumab shows better short-term efficacy vs. PDT-triamcinolone combination for wet AMD

Administering three intravitreal injections of bevacizumab at 4-week intervals appears promising for treating patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration, according to 6-month results of a prospective study.

Günther Weigert, MD, and colleagues randomly assigned 28 patients with neovascular AMD to receive either 1 mg/0.04 mL of intravitreal Avastin (bevacizumab, Genentech) in three initial treatments at 4-week intervals or standard photodynamic therapy combined with a same-day intravitreal injection of 4 mg of Kenalog (triamcinolone acetonide, Bristol-Myers Squibb).

At 6 months follow-up, patients treated with bevacizumab had an average 2.2-line improvement in visual acuity, while vision had stabilized compared with baseline in the PDT group, according to the study.

"There was a statistically significant difference between both groups as early as 1 day after initial treatment," the authors noted.

However, both groups had a similar improvement in central retinal thickness, which reduced from an average of 357 µm at baseline to 239 µm at 6 months in the bevacizumab group and from 326 µm to 222 µm in the PDT group, according to the study, published in the March issue of British Journal of Ophthalmology.