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Significant clinical benefit of TTT seen in subset of patients in CNV trial
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — A subset of patients in a trial of transpupillary thermotherapy for the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration showed a significant clinical benefit when compared with placebo, according to a press release from Iridex.
The subset consisted of patients who had a visual acuity of 20/100 or worse; 77 patients were in the test group and 39 were given sham treatment. At the 18-month follow-up, 60 patients' data was available for analysis. At 18 months, visual acuity in 22% (13/60) of the treated eyes improved by one or more Snellen lines, compared with none of the eyes in the sham treatment group. Furthermore, TTT-treated eyes on average lost two lines of visual acuity at 18 months, while sham-treated eyes lost four lines. Both differences were statistically significant, the company stated in a press release.
The trial, known as TTT4CNV, was a multicenter, prospective, double-masked, placebo-controlled study conducted at 22 centers in the United States. The study randomized eyes with subfoveal occult choroidal neovascular (CNV) membranes of 3 mm diameter or smaller and VA between 20/50 and 20/400 to transpupillary thermotherapy or sham treatment.
Transpupillary thermotherapy “clearly benefits patients with vision that is 20/100 or worse,” said Elias Reichel, MD, according to the Iridex press release. “With the TTT4CNV clinical trial, about 42% of the patients enrolled had baseline vision of 20/100 or worse. Remarkably, at 18 months, one-fifth of treated patients showed some improvement in vision compared to their vision prior to the TTT treatment.”