Short-term experience of intravitreal brolucizumab in treatment of diabetic macular edema

Abstract

This study examines the efficacy and safety of brolucizumab in the treatment of diabetic macular edema (DME) in real clinical practice in the Russian Federation. The study included 14 consecutive treatment-naïve DME patients, among them 7 males and 7 females (21 eyes in total) with mean age of 65.1±8.0 years. Patients underwent standard ophthalmological examination and multimodal imaging, including optical coherence tomography. All patients received intravitreal injections of brolucizumab every 6 weeks. A total of 73 injections were performed. A data analysis was performed for 10 eyes of 10 patients 6 months after initiation of the treatment. After 4 injections of brolucizumab, best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) increased statistically significantly from 35.8±13.7 to 41.5±11.9 ETDRS letters (p=0.03), central retinal thickness (CRT) and macular volume (MV) decreased from 411.5±107.4 to 280.2±64.6 microns (p=0.014) and from 7.39±0.92 to 6.16±7.37 mm3 (p=0.0006), respectively. The average gain of visual acuity was 5.7±7.0 letters, average decrease of CRT was -131.3±91.2, and average decrease of MV was -1.21±0.75 mm3. There were no adverse events associated with intraocular inflammation. Intravitreal injections of brolucizumab provide significant anatomical and functional improvement to DME patients in real clinical practice with results comparable to that of randomized clinical trials.