Systemic Curcumin-Human Serum Albumin in Proliferative Vitreoretinal Retinopathy: A Pilot Study

Objectives The purpose of this study is to compare the risks of novel postoperative curcumin infusion in patients with increased proliferative vitreoretinal retinopathy (PVR) after retinal detachment with steroid infusion or no treatment. Methods This was a prospective, non-randomized pilot study of 15 eyes of 15 patients (mean age 68 ± 7 years) with retinal detachment, macula off, and flare >15 pc/ms. Postoperatively, the patients received either curcumin-HSA (human serum albumin) infusion (C, n=5), prednisolone infusion (P, n=5), or no therapy (N, n=5) for three days. The outcome measures included postoperative PVR rate, the number of vitreoretinal surgeries (VRS) required, epiretinal membrane development, and visual acuity (VA).  Results All patients had a preoperative VA of hand movements, macula-off detachment situation, and two quadrants rhegmatogenous retinal detachment. Patients underwent VRS at a mean time of 5.6 ± 1.5 (C), 4.9 ± 2.0 (P), 4.7 ± 1.2 (N) days after first recognized symptoms. Postoperative PVR developed just in one eye (P) after 16 days and required VRS due to PVR retinal detachment. The remaining 14 patients of group C and N did not develop PVR. BCVA improved six months post surgery to 0.56 ± 0.31 (P), 0.53 ± 0.19 (D), 0.53 ± 0.17 (N) logMAR. There were no side effects nor complications related to the postoperative infusions.  Conclusions In this pilot study, we demonstrated that a postoperative application of curcumin infusion is a safe option in patients with an increased risk of PVR. Whether or not PVR can be reduced by curcumin infusion would require to be investigated in larger, randomized clinical trials.