Long-term Results of Intravitreal Anti-VEGF Injections in Wet AMD: A Meta-Analysis

Although intravitreal anti-VEGF medications are widely used in age-related macular degeneration, no systematic data analysis is available on the long-term prognosis of this relatively new therapeutic approach.

A meta-analysis was performed on available Medline literature. 13 relevant clinical studies (14 case series) could be identified, covering 10 247 treated eyes. The majority of available reports originate from single centre retrospective real-life environments.

The mean improvement in average visual gain was 0.9 ± 0.5 (mean ± 1 standard deviation, median; 0.8 lines) at year 1, 1.2 ± 1.1 (median: 1.1) letters at year 2, 0.7 ± 1.0 (median: 0.7) letters at year 3, and 0.2 ± 0.8 (median: 0.5), 0.4 ± 0.4 (median: 0.5) at years 4 and 5. The drop-out rates in these studies was relatively high. At the end of year 3, the average percentage of observed eyes was 44.3 ± 18.4 % (mean ± 1 standard deviation), at the end of year 4 23.5 ± 23.9 % and after years 6 and 7 below 10 % (8.2 and 7.9 %). The mean treatment frequency of injections in all available studies was highest in year 1 (6.4 ± 1.2, 6.1 - mean ± SD; median), followed by relatively consistent mean values of 4.1 and 5.1 (year (Y)2: 4.4, Y3: 4.3, Y4: 4.7, Y5: 4.1, Y6: 5.1, Y7: 4.7) injections per year.

The results of this meta-analysis clearly indicate that intravitreal anti-VEGF injection therapy is capable of maintaining visual acuity on a long-term basis of at least 4-5 years.