Macular edema patterns and response to intravitreal Avastin therapy in branch retinal vein occlusion

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the relationship of serous retinal detachment (SRD) and treatment outcome after intravitreal Avastin injection in patients with macular edema due to branch retinal vein occlusion (BRVO).Methods A retrospective case-observation study.The clinical data of 59 patients (59 eyes) from with macular edema secondary to BRVO who received intravitreal Avastin injection (1.25mg/0.05mL) were included in this study.All the patients did not receive other any therapy prior to the injection of Avastin.Clinical indexes included best corrected visual acuity (BC-VA),intraocular pressure,slit-lamp examination,stereoscopic biomicroscopy examination and fundus photography,optical coherence tomography (OCT) before injection and 1 month,3 months after initial injection.Fluorescein fundus angiography (FFA) was performed prior to injection and 3 months after initial injection.Patients were separated into 2 groups:SRD (+) and SRD (-),according to the presence or absence of SRD on OCT.Results SRD was found in 22 patients (37.29％).The age was younger in the SRD (+) group than in the SRD (-) group (P ＜0.05).The baseline central subfield macular thickness (CSMT) was significantly thicker in the SRD (+) group than in the SRD (-) group (P ＜0.001).One month and 3 months after initial intravitreal injection of Avastin,greater reductions in CSMT change from baseline were observed in the SRD (+) group than in the SRD (-) group (P ＜0.001).Three months after the initial injection,a grater improvement of BCVA was also found in the SRD (+) group than in the SRD (-) group (P ＜0.05).Conclusions Patients with SRD has greater reductions in CSMT and improvements of BCVA after intravitreal Avastin injection in patients with macular edema due to BRVO. Key words: Avastin; Branch retinal vein occlusion; Macular edema; Serous retinal detachment