Article
In Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration, Lucentis and Eylea Yield Similar Injection Burden
Author(s):
After 12 months of follow-up, a Japanese team found a trend toward greater BCVA improvement in the Eylea group than in the Lucentis group but no statistically significant differences between groups in BCVA or central foveal thickness.
A Japanese team retrospectively studied 200 eyes with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) to compare time to retreatment and visual function in previously untreated patients given intravitreal injections of aflibercept (Eylea, Regeneron) or ranibizumab (Lucentis, Roche) in routine clinical practice.
To participate in this interventional comparative case series, patients had to have received 12 months of follow-up. The Eylea group included 99 patients, and the Lucentis group included 101.
All patients received loading doses consisting of three consecutive monthly injections of Eylea, 2.0 mg/0.05 mL, or Lucentis, 0.5 mg/0.05 mL. Patients could be retreated if they showed clinical deterioration or if clinicians found intraretinal edema or subretinal fluid during spectral-domain optical coherence tomography at the 1-month follow-up visit.
The team compared treatment groups with regard to time to retreatment by using Kaplan-Meier analysis. They measured this time from the end of the loading phase to the point during the maintenance phase when patients received an additional injection. They also compared functional and anatomic outcomes for each treatment group.
They found a median time to retreatment of 5 months for both agents. They also found that, at the 12-month follow-up visit, the proportion of Lucentis patients who needed retreatment (67.7%) was not significantly higher than the proportion of Eylea patients who needed it (63.4%) (P = 0.55 by log-rank test).
The investigators reported significant improvement from pre-treatment levels in best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) during follow-up (P < 0.05 for both groups). In addition, they reported that central foveal thickness decreased from baseline values during follow-up (P < 0.001 for both groups).
Although the team noted a trend toward greater improvement in BCVA in the Eylea group, they found no statistically significant differences between groups in BCVA or central foveal thickness 12 months after treatment.
As a result, the team concluded that both Eylea and Lucentis were both well tolerated and effective in improving visual acuity in treatment-naïve nAMD patients, although they found a trend toward greater improvement in BCVA in the Eylea group. They also concluded that Eylea and Lucentis had a similar retreatment burden after the loading phase.
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