Bevacizumab in the treatment of idiopathic macular telangiectasia

Abstract

Patients with type 1 IMT with pronounced macular oedema on OCT may benefit from intravitreal bevacizumab injections, showing functional as well as morphological improvement, while patients with type 2 IMT with minimal cystic changes on OCT do not show functional improvement despite repeated injections.

Intravitreal bevacizumab for type 1 idiopathic macular telangiectasia

“…Photocoagulation, 4 PDT, 5 and intravitreal bevacizumab 6 have been reported to benefit type 1 IMT patients; however, the sample sizes were small. Chopder et al 4 reported the use of photocoagulation for three cases of type 1 IMT (initial visual acuity: 6/36, 6/24, and 6/12; .…”

“…However, numerous methods have been used for the treatment of type 2 IMT, including photocoagulation, 7 surgical removal of the subretinal neovascular membrane, 8 transpupillary thermotherapy, 9,10 PDT, 11,12 intravitreal triamcinolone acetonide administration, [13][14][15] and intravitreal bevacizumab administration. 6,[16][17][18][19][20][21] The results of these studies showed that bevacizumab was somewhat efficacious for the treatment of type 2 IMT.…”

“…5 Visual acuity remained stable up to 32 months after treatment. Gamulescu et al 6 recently reported that a single injection of intravitreal bevacizumab markedly improved visual acuity in a type 1 IMT patient.…”

“…4,5 Recently, Gamulescu et al 6 reported that a single intravitreal bevacizumab injection markedly increased visual acuity in a type 1 IMT patient, suggesting that anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapy may be effective in treating the associated visual deterioration. As this was reported in only one patient, the efficacy of this therapy is controversial.…”

Diagnosis and management of a patient with idiopathic macular telangiectasia type 2

“…In one reported patient with macular telangiectasia type I, a single intravitreal bevacizumab injection resulted in a marked increase in visual acuity from 20/50 to 20/20, with significant and sustained decrease in both leakage on fluorescein angiography and cystoid macular oedema on OCT up to 12 months [15]. It is likely that patients with macular telangiectasia type I with pronounced macular oedema from leaky telangiectasis may benefit functionally and morphologically from intravitreal anti-VEGF injections, but this needs to be further investigated.…”