Intravitreal plasmin effectively treats DME patients unresponsive to other treatments

ATLANTA — Injecting autologous plasmin enzyme into eyes with diabetic macular edema that were unresponsive to laser or other injections showed a lessening of the macular thickening, a surgeon said here.

"Intravitreal injection of autologous plasmin effectively reduces macular thickening due to diabetic macular edema in cases that have not responded to conventional treatments and improves visual acuity, at least in the medium-long term," Patricia Udaondo, MD, said at the American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting. "Further studies are necessary to assess its long-term efficacy and safety."

Researchers used optical coherence tomography to evaluate the efficacy of intravitreal plasmin injections as treatment for diabetic macular edema in 16 patients. All patients had bilateral DME that was unresponsive to laser photocoagulation and other intravitreal treatments.

In those patients, one eye was treated with plasmin and the other was used as a control, Dr. Udaondo said.

Baseline central macular thickness of an average 541 µm decreased significantly to an average of 241 µm at 1 month and 244 µm at 4 months. The control group showed no significant changes.

Visual acuity in the treated group went from 0.618 logMAR to 0.43 logMAR.