Asma Aftab, Mirza Masood Anwar, Afzal Khan Niazi.
Short Term Efficacy of Intra-Vitreal Bevacizumab (Avastin) in Macular Oedema.
Ophthalmol Update Jan ;16(4):854-7.

Background: Worldwide, macular edema is leading cause loss of central vision. Untreated cases result in blurring vision to blindness and substantially affects an individual`s quality of life Objective: To determine short term efficacy of Bevacizumab (Avastin) in terms of macular thickness and visual acuity among patients diagnosed with macular edema Material & Methods: A randomized controlled trial was conducted in Department of Ophthalmology, POF hospital, Wah Cantt for 6 months from June 2017-December 2017. Sample size of 80 patients were takenusing WHO indicator. Non probability consecutive sampling was used for recruitment of these participants. Patients were randomly divided into two groups. Group A was provided with intravitreal injection of 0.05 ml, containing 1.25 mg Bevacizumab while Group B was given topical NSAIDs 0.1 ml TDS. Patients were followed for 2 months to determine change in macular thickness and visual acuity from baseline. Ethical approval was obtained and data was analyzed using SPSS version 22.0. Post stratification t test and chi square tests were applied. P value <0.05 was considered significant. Results: Total 80 patients were included in study with 1:1 randomization (40 patients in each group). Mean age of patients was 57.4+-2.1 SD. There were 30 (38%) females and 50(62%) males. Group A (Bevacizumab) had significant reduction in macular thickness (540.6�m�113.4SD) from baseline (604.61�m�123.7SD) (p=0.03) as compared to group B - NSAIDs. Group A had 75% patients with visual acuity improvement more than 2 lines from baseline measurements on snellen`s chart as compared to Group B (P=0.01). Significant association between interventional group and gender (p=0.00), age (p=0.02) was found. However, an insignificant association was found between interventional groups and disease duration (P=0.165), diabetes mellitus (p=0.143) and hypertension (p=0.123) Conclusion: Intravitreal Bevacizumab is a promising therapeutic method to improve visual acuity and to reduce macular edema.

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