Purpose: To report the 12-month anatomic and Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) best-corrected visual acuity (VA) response after primary intravitreal bevacizumab (Avastin, Genentech Inc., San Francisco, CA – 2.5 mg) in patients with choroidal neovascularization secondary to age-related macular degeneration.
Methods: One-hundred seventy-two eyes of 164 consecutive patients with choroidal neovascularization secondary to age-related macular degeneration, a mean age of 74.7 years and a minimum of 12 months of follow-up participated in this interventional prospective case series. Patients were treated with at least 3 intravitreal injection of 2.5 mg of bevacizumab. Patients underwent Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study BCVA testing, ophthalmoscopic examination, optical coherence tomography, and fluorescein angiography at baseline and follow-up visits.
Results: Mean baseline VA was 0.17±0.17 (172 eyes), and mean final VA was 0.15±0.18 (40 eyes) at 12 months. Central macular thickness at baseline by optical coherence tomography had a mean of 386.1±135.8 µm which was significantly reduced to a mean of 281.5±100.3 µm, 313.8±103.3 µm, 296.5±129.6 µm, and 276.8±95.69 µm at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after initial treatment, respectively (p < 0.0001). No systemic adverse events were observed.
Conclusions: Primary intravitreal bevacizumab at doses of 2.5 mg seems to provide stability or improvement in VA, optical coherence tomography, and fluorescein angiography in subfoveal choroidal neovascularization secondary to age-related macular degeneration at 12 months.