Bevacizumab shows positive results for CNV unrelated to AMD, study finds

Patients with subfoveal choroidal neovascularization secondary to causes other than age-related macular degeneration appear to respond favorably and similarly to intravitreal bevacizumab, a retrospective study found.

"However, the low prevalence of some of the underlying causes will likely preclude large, prospective, randomized, controlled trials similar to those for CNV secondary to AMD," the study authors said in the July issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.

Louis K. Chang, MD, and colleagues at Vitreous, Retina, Macula Consultants of New York evaluated baseline characteristics and visual and anatomical outcomes after treating 39 eyes of 36 patients with subfoveal CNV secondary to causes other than AMD with 1.25 mg of intravitreal Avastin (bevacizumab, Genentech). Specifically, 12 patients had CNV secondary to multifocal choroiditis, 11 patients had angioid streaks, 10 patients had myopic degeneration, four patients had idiopathic disease and two patients had CNV due to other disease.

All patients received an average of 3.4 intravitreal injections per eye over an average of 58.8 weeks of follow-up; there were no serious complications.

At baseline, visual acuity averaged 20/60 for the cohort. At 3 months follow-up, the median visual acuity had improved to 20/30 (P = .004), the authors noted.

At final follow-up, the median visual acuity was 20/40 (P < .02); however, visual acuity at final follow-up had worsened since the 3-month visit (P < .03), according to the study.

"There was no correlation between underlying diagnosis and [visual acuity] change during follow-up," the authors said.