Akhunzada Muhammad Aftab, Awais Rauf, Farooq Khan, Syed Bilal Hassan Zaidi, Mustafa Iqbal, Syeda Ghazala Shahnawaz.
Ocular and systemic Complications of Intravitreal Bevacizumab (Avastin) therapy.
Ophthalmol Update Jan ;13(2):62-5.

Introduction: Since the introduction of Anti-VEGF therapy in 2005, it has been extensively used in treating ophthalmic conditions like proliferative diabetic retinopathy, age related macular degeneration and macular edema. However intravitreal route of administration predisposes to ophthalmic complications along with few systemic adverse events too. Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis of the records of all patients admitted for intravitreal bevacizumab therapy was performed during 1st January 2012 to 31st December 2012. All patients under went complete ophthalmic and systemic evaluation especially to evaluate the cardiovascular risk factors. Multiple doses of 2.5mg/ 0.1ml of bevacizumab were given from a single vial in multiple settings in a sterile environment. Ocular and systemic complications were analyzed on 1stpost operative day, 7th day and after 4 weeks. Results: Ocular complications included sub conjunctival hemorrhage (2.19%), crystalline lens trauma (0.69%), transient rise of IOP (0.3%), endophthalmitis (0.11%), mild uveitis (0.2%), conjunctival injection with punctate erosions (0.11%) and regurgitation of drug (0.4%). No systemic side effects of therapy were seen during the study period. Conclusion: Services provided at our institute meet the international standards and all the adverse effects and (or) complications are within international standards despite use of single vial for multiple doses and multiple settings.

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