Endophthalmitis after resident-performed intravitreal bevacizumab injection.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the rate of acute endophthalmitis after resident-performed intravitreal bevacizumab (IVB) injections and to compare the results with those performed by attending retina surgeons. DESIGN: Retrospective comparative case series. PARTICIPANTS: Eight thousand thirty-seven patients treated with intravitreal injection of bevacizumab. METHODS: A retrospective chart review of the resident-performed IVB injections at Rassoul Akram Hospital and attending-performed IVB injections at a private eye clinic between 2011 and 2014 was undertaken. Cases of clinical endophthalmitis were identified. RESULTS: During the study interval, the overall incidence rate of postinjection endophthalmitis was 0.01% (1/8037). Antibiotic eye drops were prescribed after IVB injection for 2771 eyes (34.5%). The single case of acute endophthalmitis occurred after a resident-performed injection, and vitreous culture showed growth of Staphylococcus epidermidis. The incidence rate of acute endophthalmitis after resident-performed IVB injection was 0.02% (1/4921). No statistically significant difference was found in the rates of endophthalmitis between resident-performed and attending-performed injections (p = 1). Also, the difference in the rates of endophthalmitis between those receiving postinjection antibiotics and those who did not was not statistically significant (p = 0.3). CONCLUSIONS: The risk for endophthalmitis after resident-performed IVB injection is low and similar to that of the supervising surgeons performing the procedure.

Gene therapy for retinal diseases.

Gene therapy has a growing research potential particularly in the field of ophthalmic and retinal diseases owing to three main characteristics of the eye; accessibility in terms of injections and surgical interventions, its immune-privileged status facilitating the accommodation to the antigenicity of a viral vector, and tight blood-ocular barriers which save other organs from unwanted contamination. Gene therapy has tremendous potential for different ocular diseases. In fact, the perspective of gene therapy in the field of eye research does not confine to exclusive monogenic ophthalmic problems and it has the potential to include gene based pharmacotherapies for non-monogenic problems such as age related macular disease and diabetic retinopathy. The present article has focused on how gene transfer into the eye has been developed and used to treat retinal disorders with no available therapy at present.

Intravitreal bevacizumab for pseudophakic cystoid macular edema; a systematic review.

Cystoid macular edema (CME) is a major cause of decreased vision after complicated or uncomplicated cataract surgery. This paper reviews the use of intravitreal bevacizumab (IVB) injection for treatment of pseudophakic CME. In a literature search of all articles available on Medline and Scopus databases, 11 studies including one prospective and 4 retrospective studies, 4 case reports, one letter to editor and one review article were identified. All articles except one, reported the use of IVB for chronic CME unresponsive to at least one conventional treatment modality. The level of evidence for all studies was categorized as low or very low. Although intravitreal bevacizumab might be effective for many cases of pseudophakic CME, its use should be reserved for eyes unresponsive to conventional treatment modalities.

Intravitreal erythropoietin injection for the treatment of non-arteritic anterior ischaemic optic neuropathy.

AIM: To evaluate the effect of intravitreal injection of erythropoietin for the treatment of non-arteritic anterior ischaemic optic neuropathy (NAION). METHODS: In this prospective interventional case series, 31 eyes of 31 patients with NAION were included. Patients received intravitreal injection of 2000 unit (0.2 cm³) of erythropoietin within 1 month of the onset of the disease. Visual acuity and visual field were recorded before injections and 1 week, 1 month, 3 months and 6 months after the injections. RESULTS: The mean duration of symptoms before injections was 11.2 ± 5.5 days. Six months after injections, visual acuity improved in 27 eyes (87%), and 17 eyes (54.8%) had ≥ 3 lines of visual improvement. The mean preinjection visual acuity was 1.01 ± 0.88 logMAR and 0.58 ± 0.58 logMAR (p<0.001) at last follow-up. Visual acuity improvement occurred in 61.2% of patients within the first month. It followed a biphasic pattern in which there was continuous improvement up to 3 months and then started to deteriorate, although it remained significantly better than baseline until the last follow-up. No patient lost any lines of visual acuity compared with the baseline values. The mean of mean deviations of visual field was -19.6 ± 5.7 dB at baseline and -18.6 ± 6.3 dB (p = 0.6) at last follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Intravitreal injection of erythropoietin may be safe and effective in the treatment of NAION. The effect may last for a few months and then decline.

Contribution of pneumolysin and autolysin to the pathogenesis of experimental pneumococcal endophthalmitis.

PURPOSE: To determine the contribution of pneumolysin and autolysin, two putative pneumococcal virulence proteins, to the pathogenesis of Streptococcus pneumoniae endophthalmitis. METHODS: Endophthalmitis was established in Lewis rats by intravitreal injection of pneumococcal strains at an inoculum of 10 organisms. The virulence of three closely related type 2 S. pneumoniae strains were compared: a pneumolysin-deficient derivative (PLN-A), an autolysin-deficient derivative (AL-6), and their isogenic wild-type parent (D 39). Clinical and histologic inflammation scores were compared 24 hours and 48 hours after inoculation. RESULTS: Eyes infected with PLN-A and AL-6 strains showed less anterior segment inflammation clinically at 24 hours than did eyes infected with the wild-type strain. Histologic examination at 24 hours showed significantly less corneal infiltration and vitritis and more relative preservation of retinal tissue in eyes infected with PLN-A and AL-6 strains than in eyes infected with the wild-type strain. At 48 hours, no observable differences between PLN-A and wild-type strains were present clinically or histologically. Histologically, however, the AL-6 strain caused less retinal damage than did the wild-type strain. CONCLUSIONS: Intraocular infection with pneumolysin-deficient S. pneumoniae results in less severe tissue damage in the first 24 hours of disease compared with infection with pneumolysin-producing S. pneumoniae. Autolysin-deficient S. pneumoniae shows a similar degree of attenuated virulence. Pneumolysin and autolysin may contribute to the early pathogenesis of pneumococcal endophthalmitis.