To study the changes in retinal thickness and morphology in CNV patients treated with Intravitreal Avastin (bevacizumab)

1. Dr Kashif Iqbal
2. Dr Tariq Khan
3. Dr Khurram Mirza
4. Dr Z A Qazi
5. Dr Hanan Jamil
6. Dr Ahmad Zeshan

LRBT Eye Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan

PURPOSE:
To study the changes in retinal thickness and morphology in CNV patients treated with Intravitreal Avastin (bevacizumab)

METHOD
A retrospective review was performed on consented patients with Choroidal Neovascular Membranes (CNV) with different causes, who underwent OCT examination and later received intravitreal Bevacizumab therapy at LRBT Hospital Lahore. All patients underwent OCT examination at baseline with repeated scans at various intervals after the injections. At each visit, a routine Snellen visual acuity assessment was performed followed by an ophthalmic examination and optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging

RESULTS
Seventy eyes of 70 patients received an intravitreal bevacizumab injection between April 2009 and March 2010. Their OCT examination before the injection and afterwards were compared with regards to central retinal thickness and morphological changes.
Improvements in visual acuity and central retinal thickness measurements were evident by week 1 and continued through month 4 and were maintained at 8 and 12 months. At 12 months, the mean visual acuity improved from 20/160 to 20/125 (P<0.001) and the mean central retinal thickness decreased by 99.6 [mu] m (P<0.001). The morphological changes also showed an overall stability

CONCLUSION
OCT is an important tool to study the changes in central retinal thickness after the injections and to correlate changes in visual acuity (VA) with central retinal thickness. OCT also evaluates the morphology of macula and changes in CNV and PED after treatment.