This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Study: Ranibizumab demonstrated continued efficacy at 2 years
NEW ORLEANS — Ranibizumab, dosed on an as-needed basis, showed continued improvement in visual acuity and retinal thickness at 2 years follow-up, according to the results of a study presented here.
|
Philip J. Rosenfeld, MD, PhD, presented the 2-year data from the PrONTO study (Prospective Optical Coherence Tomography Imaging of Patients with Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration Treated with Intraocular Lucentis) at Retina Subspecialty Day preceding the annual American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting.
By month 24, retinal thickness had decreased by 215 µm and visual acuity had improved by 11.1 letters, he said.
Patients each received an average of 10 injections during the study period. Dr. Rosenfeld presented one case where the patient achieved a visual acuity of 20/16 with no additional injections. He then showed another patient who received a total of 24 injections over 24 months.
The study included all lesion types across 40 patients, who had an average age of 83 years. Surgeons injected ranibizumab at months 0, 1 and 2, at which point 97% of patients were "dry."
The researchers then monitored the patients and re-treated when patients met certain criteria, including the loss of 5 letters or more of visual acuity with evidence of subretinal fluid, an increase in central retinal thickness of 100 µm or more on optical coherence tomography (OCT), evidence of new hemorrhage, new classic choroidal neovascularization or detection of fluid on OCT persisting 1 month after injection.
"OCT is always going to see the changes," Dr. Rosenfeld said. "OCT guided the treatment to preserve the efficacy."
Dr. Rosenfeld cited the need for a larger prospective study to further evaluate the results.