Single intravitreal bevacizumab injection effects on contrast sensitivity in macular edema from branch retinal vein occlusion

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of a single intravitreal bevacizumab injection on visual acuity, contrast sensitivity and optical coherence tomographymea su red cen tral macular thickness in eyes with macular edema from branch re tinal vein occlusion. Methods: Seventeen eyes of 17 patients with macular edema from unilateral branch retinal vein occlusion were treated with a single bevacizumab injection. Patients were submitted to a complete evaluation including best corrected visual acuity, contrast sensitivity and optical coherence tomography measurements before treatment and one and three months after injection. Visual acuity, contrast sensitivity and optical coherence tomography measurements were compared to baseline values. Results: Mean visual acuity measurement improved from 0.77 logMAR at baseli ne to 0.613 logMAR one month after injection (P=0.0001) but worsened to 0.75 logMAR after three months. Contrast sensitivity test demonstrated significant improvement at spatial frequencies of 3, 6, 12 and 18 cycles/degree one month after injection and at the spatial frequency of 12 cycles/degree three months after treatment. Mean ± standard deviation baseline central macular thickness (552 ± 150 µm) reduced sig ni ficantly one month (322 ± 127 µm, P=0.0001) and three mo nths (439 ± 179 µm, P=0.01) after treatment. Conclusions: Bevacizumab injection improves visual acuity and contrast sensitiv i t y and reduces central macular thickness one month after treatment. Visual acuity returns to baseline levels at the 3month followup, but some beneficial effect of the treatment is still present at that time, as evidenced by optical coherence tomographymea sured central macular thickness and contrast sensitivity measurements.

Evaluation of Contrast Sensitivity after Single Intravitreal Triamcinolone Injection for Macular Edema Secondary to Branch Retinal Vein Occlusion

“…Recently, Preti et al evaluated the change in CS function after intravitreal injection of bevacizumab for the treatment of ME secondary to BRVO [13]. They found that eyes with ME showed an improvement in VA 1 month after bevacizumab injection, but VA again worsened at 3 months.…”

Contrast Sensitivity Testing in Retinal Vein Occlusion Using a Novel Stimulus

“… 4 , 5 Although there are limited baseline data on the CS of patients with RVO as compared to controls, CS measurements have demonstrated value in assessing ischemic retinal diseases and have characterized visual changes in RVO post-treatment. 6 , 7 In order to better characterize vision loss in RVO, a more robust understanding of CS changes in RVO is necessary.…”

Potential roles of MNREAD acuity charts and contrast/glare sensitivity in Ranibizumab treatment of branch retinal vein occlusion

“…Measures of visual function other than visual acuity after anti-VEGF treatment of BRVO have been reported in a few papers [6][7][8][9]. Suner et al [6] reported improvements in reading speed as estimated by the reading speed test developed by the Macular Photocoagulation Study Group.…”

“…Varma et al [7] measured the NEI VFQ-25, another indicator of visual function, during BRVO treatment via intravitreal injection of ranibizumab. Preti et al [8] reported that a single intravitreal bevacizumab injection improved contrast sensitivity (CS) in macular edema from BRVO. Pece et al [9] reported that CS, MNREAD time, and reading fluency improved significantly in eyes treated with ranibizumab.…”