Incidence of acute endophthalmitis after office based intravitreal bevacizumab injection

The burden of intravitreal injections has increased tremendously over the past few years. Since traditionally the operation theatre setup is currently used for this procedure, it is increasingly becoming difficult to manage such a patient load in the theatres. To overcome this challenge, office-based setup for intravitreal injection was started. This study was planned to determine the incidence of endophthalmitis after office-based intravitreal bevacizumab injection and to compare it with previously reported incidence of endophthalmitis after operation theatre-based intravitreal injections. The study was conducted at Al-Ehsan Eye Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan, from July 2015 to June 2016, and comprised patients who received intravitreal injections of bevacizumab (Avastin) for different ocular indications. A total of 1,047 intravitreal injections were given in an office-based set-up. Of them, 2(0.19%) cases of clinically suspected endophthalmitis were identified. Office-based set-up for intravitreal bevacizumab injection was found to have comparable safety profile with traditional operation theatre-based set-up.