gms | German Medical Science

25th Annual Meeting of the German Retina Society

German Retina Society

01.06. - 02.06.2012, Münster

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Long-term results after 4 years of flexible ranibizumab treatment in patients with wet AMD

Meeting Abstract

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  • Heinrich Gerding - Abteilung für Retinologie, Klinik Pallas, Olten, Schweiz
  • L. Hefner - Abteilung für Retinologie, Klinik Pallas, Olten, Schweiz
  • M. Timmermann - Abteilung für Retinologie, Klinik Pallas, Olten, Schweiz

German Retina Society. 25th Annual Conference of the German Retina Society. Münster, 01.-02.06.2012. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2012. Doc12rg39

doi: 10.3205/12rg39, urn:nbn:de:0183-12rg392

This is the English version of the article.
The German version can be found at: http://www.egms.de/de/meetings/rg2012/12rg39.shtml

Published: May 30, 2012

© 2012 Gerding et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

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Purpose: To analyze the long-term efficacy of ranibizumab in a group of AMD patients under a PRN-regimen.

Methods: A 4-years analysis of an institutional case series of initially 104 patients (104 eyes) was performed. Patients were monitored in year 1 monthly and later on as close as possible to regular monthly intervals. Treatment response was classified after 48 months into 3 categories: winner with ≥ 1 line of visual acuity (VA) improvement, stabilizer with <1 line gain or loss of VA, and loser with ≥ 1 line of VA loss.

Results: 84 patients (81%) completed the 48-month visit. VA improved after 3 injections by +1.43 lines until month 3 and was +1.08 at month 12, +0.63 at month 24, +0.58 at month 36, and +0.07 at month 48. The average number of injections was 14.0 between baseline and month 48 (5.8 in year 1, 3.3 in 2, 2.6 in 3, 2.4 in year 4). 9 eyes (10.7%) needed only 3 injections, 14 eyes (16.7%) ≥ 24 injections. 32 eyes (38.1%) presented a gain of >1 line at month 48, 19 (22.6%) ≥ 3 lines. 25 eyes (29.8%) were classified as stabilizer. 27 (32.1%) eyes lost ≥ 1 line until month 48, 16 (19.0%) of these ≥ 3 lines.

Conclusions: The results demonstrate that flexible ranibizumab treatment results in a long-term visual stabilization clearly superior to the natural course. In the largest subgroup (38.1%) a substantial gain could be conserved for at least 4 years.