Anatomical Non-Responder to Intravitreal Bevacizumab for Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To analyze the characteristics of anatomical non-response to intravitreal bevacizumab (IVB) in patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). METHODS: Neovascular AMD patients who were treated with IVB were studied. A non-responder was defined as a patient whose eyes had no change in choroidal neovascularization (CNV) lesion size or fluorescein leakage and no change in foveal thickness (FT) after at least two administrations of IVB. Demographic findings and efficacy outcomes were compared between responders and non-responders based on patient gender, age, visual acuity (VA), FT, CNV lesion type, CNV lesion size, presence of serous retinal detachment (SRD), presence of pigment epithelial detachment (PED), PED size, and presence of sub-macular hemorrhage (SMH). RESULTS: Five patients (six eyes; 13.6%) were identified as non-responders to treatment with IVB. The mean age of the non-responder group (75.17 +/- 3.66 yers) was greater (p = 0.237) than that of the responder group (71.89 +/- 8.06 years), and the proportion of occult CNV (85.7% versus 55.3%, p = 0.375) was higher in the non-responder group, although there was no significant difference compared with that of the responder group. The PED size of the non-responder group (4.42 +/- 1.56 mm2) was significantly larger than that of the responder group (1.51 +/- 2.33 mm2, p = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The authors report a group of patients in AMD with poor treatment response to IVB. The PED size of the non-responder group was confirmed to be significantly larger than that of the responder group.