RESEARCH ARTICLE
Therapy of Age-related Exudative Macular Degeneration with Anti-vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Drugs: An Italian Real Life Study
Settimio Rossi1, Carlo Gesualdo1, *, Antonio Tartaglione1, Giovan Battista Scazzi1, Anna Cristina D’Alessio1, Adele Ragucci1, Paolo Melillo1, Francesca Simonelli1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2021Volume: 15
First Page: 130
Last Page: 136
Publisher ID: TOOPHTJ-15-130
DOI: 10.2174/1874364102115010130
Article History:
Received Date: 20/11/2020Revision Received Date: 9/3/2021
Acceptance Date: 21/3/2021
Electronic publication date: 24/08/2021
Collection year: 2021
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Aim:
To evaluate the real utilization of ranibizumab and aflibercept in the daily management of patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) treated at the Eye Clinic of Campania University L.Vanvitelli.
Background:
Therapy with anti-vascular endothelial growth factor represents the gold standard in wet age-related macular degeneration. There are nonreal life italian studies of this therapy in the literature.
Objective:
To analyze in our sample the post-therapy variations of best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and central retinal thickness (CRT) observed at the end of a 12-month follow-up period.
Methods:
This real-life study analyzes 109 patients that underwent monthly checks for the first 4 months and then every 2 months until the end of the 12-month follow-up. The sample was first analyzed in its entirety, subsequently subdivided into 3 groups based on baseline BCVA, age, and the number of intravitreal injections performed, in order to identify possible predictive elements of the anti-VEGF response.
Results:
On average, patients underwent 4.16 ± 1.58 intravitreal anti-VEGF injections in 1 year. At the end of the 12-month follow-up, the patients’ average BCVA increased from 33.01 letters to 33.75 letters (+0.74 ± 9,4 letters), while the average CRT decreased from 346.86 µm to 265.39 µm (-81.47 ± 121 µm).
Conclusion:
The study shows the efficacy of anti-VEGF therapy in the stabilization of BCVA in nAMD, confirming the differences in visual outcomes compared to clinical trials, mainly for economic-organizational reasons.
