Macular oedema is the disease of the eye mostly diebetic patients suffer from however other people can have it too. It is caused by the leakage of the blood vessels on the light sensitive part of the eyes.This study investigates if ‘real world’ data from a larger and more diverse population, followed for a longer period, suggest anti-vascular endothelial growth factor is more effective than intravitreal dexamethasone as treatment for macular oedema secondary to branch retinal vein occlusion..
Data of 5661 treatment-naive patients with a single mode of treatment for macular oedema secondary to branch retinal vein occlusion and no history of cataract surgery either during or recently preceding the treatment was taken and analysed.
Mean baseline visual acuity was 57.1/53.1/62.3 letters in the anti-VEGF/dexamethasone/macular laser groups, respectively. This changed to 66.72 (+9.6)/57.6 (+4.5)/63.2 (+0.9) at 12 months. Adequate numbers allowed analysis at 18 months for all groups (66.6 (+9.5)/56.1 (+3.0)/60.8 (-1.5)) and for anti-VEGF at 36 months (68.0, +10.9) Mean number of treatments were 5.1/1.5/1.2 at 12 months, 5.9/1.7/1.2 at 18 months for all three groups and 10.3 at 36 months for anti-VEGF.
The study concluded that visual acuity improvements were higher and more sustained with anti-VEGF.
Reference: https://bjo.bmj.com/content/early/2020/06/12/bjophthalmol-2020-315836
