Title: efficacy of intravitreal dexamethasone implant on hard exudate in diabetic macular edema

Abstract

Background To investigate the effect of intravitreal dexamethasone implant (DEX implant) on hard exudate (HE) accompanying diabetic macular edema (DME). Methods This study was a non-comparative non-randomized 1-year prospective interventional study. Patients with DME and\xa0HE were treated using DEX implant two or three times. Color fundus photography and optical coherence tomography\xa0(OCT) were performed at every visit. HE area was measured semi-automatically from the fundus photographs. Results Thirty-five patients completed the study. Eleven patients (31.4%) received two injections, while the remaining\xa0received three times. HE area (primary outcome) significantly decreased from 1.404±2.094 mm2 (baseline) to\xa00.212±0.592 mm2 (last visit), which was 24% of the baseline HE area ( P <0.001). HE1500 (HE within 1500 μm from\xa0the fovea) area also decreased significantly from 0.382±0.467 mm2 to 0.066±0.126 mm2 ( P <0.001). Furthermore, anaverage best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) improvement of 4.4 Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study\xa0(ETDRS) letters was observed (from 49.9±18.3 to 54.3±20.4 letters) ( P = 0.008). Central macular thickness (CMT)\xa0decreased from 455.8±23.6 μm to 366.8±31.1 μm ( P =0.009). Repetitive measurements for entire study duration was\xa0analyzed using generalized estimating equations (GEE), where BCVA was related to age, CMT, and HE1500 area in\xa0multivariate analyses. Conclusion DEX implant could reduce and suppress HE in DME for one year with two or three injections. And centrally located\xa0HE area (HE1500 area) is related to vision. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02399657 , Registered 26 March 2015.\xa0