Retina | 2021
Retinal Microvascular Changes in Uveal Melanoma Following Conbercept Injection after Plaque Radiotherapy as Detected By Optical Coherence Tomographic Angiography.
Abstract
PURPOSE\nTo investigate macular microvascular characteristics imaged by optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) in uveal melanoma (UM) patients following Conbercept injections after plaque radiotherapy.\n\n\nMETHODS\nProspective comparative analysis comprising 15 UM patients with Conbercept injections and 30 patients without Conbercept injections after plaque radiotherapy by OCTA. The Conbercept group received intravitreal Conbercept injections at the time of plaque removal, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months , 9 months and 12 months after plaque removal (total, 6 injections). The control group had no intravitreal Conbercept injection.\n\n\nRESULTS\nAfter initiation of Conbercept injections, superficial retinal vascular density (SVD) in whole image and parafovea region were significantly higher at 6 months, while there was no significant difference at 9 months and 12 months. in ANOVA analysis, SVD in whole image remained stable after Conbercept injections (P=0.069), while the SVD decreased significantly after plaque radiotherapy in control group (P=0.011). In multivariable linear regression, a higher SVD in whole image region at 6 months was significantly associated with intravitreal Conbercept injection (P=0.018), wider tumor base (P=0.026), and thinner tumor thickness (P=0.04).\n\n\nCONCLUSIONS\nOCTA can provide a quantitative evaluation of early retinal microvascular changes following radiotherapy. Intravitreal Conbercept treatment could partly relieve the retinal vascular damage in response to radiation therapy at early stage in patients with uveal melanoma, however may not be able to provide long-term positive functional outcomes.