Josep M. Caminal

Intravitreal bevacizumab (Avastin) for choroidal neovascularisation secondary to pathological myopia: 6-month results

Background: To determine the efficacy and safety of intravitreal Avastin (bevacizumab) in the treatment of choroidal neovascularisation (CNV) secondary to pathological myopia (PM). Methods: This paper reports on a consecutive prospective study of patients with CNV secondary to PM who were treated with intravitreal bevacizumab (1.25 mg/0.05 ml). Patients underwent complete ophthalmic evaluation, which included best-corrected visual acuity testing measured with Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study charts, optical coherence tomography (OCT), and fluorescein angiography. Results: There were 17 eyes of 17 patients, and the mean age was 55.4 (SD 10.0) years. At the 6-month follow-up, the mean visual acuity improved by 8.4 letters (p = 0.04). Forty-one per cent of patients increased at least one line, and 17% increased more than six lines. There were no cases of moderate vision loss (⩾3 lines) or severe vision loss (⩾6 lines). The mean OCT foveal thickness decreased by 79.6 μm (p = 0.002). Favourable outcomes were obtained in all subgroups. Patients received an average of one injection. As a complication, there was a tear of the retinal pigment epithelium. No other ocular or systemic side effects were observed. Conclusion: In our study, intravitreal bevacizumab appeared to be safe and efficacious in eyes with CNV secondary to PM.

Retinal pigment epithelial tears after intravitreal bevacizumab injection for predominantly classic choroidal neovascularization.

Purpose To detect retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) tears in predominantly classic choroidal neovascularization (CNV) secondary to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) treated with intravitreal bevacizumab injections. Methods Forty consecutive patients with predominantly classic CNV secondary to AMD were treated with 1.25 mg of intravitreal bevacizumab. Patients were evaluated with visual acuity (VA) measured with Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study charts, optical coherence tomography, and fluorescein angiography. Results Three patients developed a RPE tear after the first injection. The first patient had been treated with verteporfin therapy and VA remained unchanged. In the other two cases the CNV was naïve and VA improved since the foveal center was not involved by the tear and macular edema was reduced. Conclusions RPE tears can occur following intravitreal bevacizumab injections in patients with predominantly classic CNV although VA is not always affected.

En face swept-source optical coherence tomography in neovascular age-related macular degeneration.

Purpose To describe en face swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) findings in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and choroid and to correlate them with fluorescein angiography (FA) and/or indocyanine green angiography (ICGA) in neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Methods Thirty-eight eyes with the recent diagnosis of neovascular AMD were imaged using an SS-OCT system. En face images were obtained at RPE, choriocapillaris, Sattlers layer and Hallers layer level. Analysis of the images and correlation with colour fundus photographs, FA, ICGA in selected cases, were made. Results En face images at RPE level revealed changes in all eyes. The neovascular complex appeared hyper-reflective in 9 of 38 eyes (23.7%), and in 29 of 38 eyes (76.3%), it was hyporeflective. The choriocapillaris en face image showed pathological changes in all eyes as well, and in 20 out of 38 eyes (52.6%), the alterations were hyper-reflective, while 18 of 38 eyes (47.4%) showed hyporeflective changes. Twenty (52.6%) eyes and 19 (50.0%) had a hyper-reflective lesion in Sattlers layer and Hallers layer, respectively, and 15 (39.4%) cases showed a hyporeflective lesion in both layers. No differences were found between the neovascular complex area, horizontal and vertical diameters, measured in the en face image and FA (p=0.171, p=0.061, p=0.133, respectively). Hyporeflective changes were predominant at RPE level and hyper-reflective at choriocapillaris, Sattlers and Hallers layers. Conclusions En face SS-OCT is a rapid, non-invasive, high-resolution, promising technology, which allows a complementary study to angiography of neovascular AMD. There is a correlation between angiography and en face SS-OCT images in neovascular AMD.

One-year results of a flexible regimen with ranibizumab therapy in macular degeneration: relationship with the number of injections.

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of a flexible regimen with intravitreal injections of ranibizumab in patients with naive choroidal neovascularization secondary to age-related macular degeneration and to determine whether the final outcome is related to the number of injections. Methods: Prospective, noncomparative, consecutive case series study. We included 90 eyes of 88 patients that were initially treated with 3 consecutive monthly intravitreal injections of ranibizumab, and thereafter, follow-up visits were progressively spread out to a maximum of 8 weeks apart in the absence of visual acuity loss and signs of lesion activity. The primary end points were changes in visual acuity (Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study letters), foveal thickness measured by spectral-domain optical coherence tomography, and lesion size (LS) measured by fluorescein angiography. Results: The median visual acuity improved from 53 letters at baseline to 60 letters at Month 1 (P < 0.0001), 63 letters at Month 3 (P < 0.0001), and 60 letters at Month 12 (P < 0.0001). A significant reduction was also observed in foveal thickness and LS (P < 0.0001). The mean number of injections was 4.4, and the mean number of visits was 8.0. Treatment consisted of 3 injections for 40% of patients, and 60% of patients received more than 3 injections. No significant association was observed between the visual acuity improvement and the number of injections. No relevant side effects were observed. Conclusion: A flexible regimen with ranibizumab therapy is efficacious and safe in patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration, reducing both the burden of injections and follow-up visits. The visual acuity improvement was independent of the number of injections.

Metastatic uveal melanoma: is there a role for conventional chemotherapy? - A single center study based on 58 patients.

Uveal melanoma metastases develop in 6.5–35% of patients, most commonly to the liver. Metastatic uveal melanoma (MUM) survival is poor, with 5–7 months of median survival. We reviewed retrospectively all patients with MUM diagnosed between January 1990 and December 2008 at our institution. We analyzed a total of 58 patients with a median age of 61 years (31–84 years). Median time for metastases development was 25.63 months (0.17–102.43 months). Fifty-six patients had hepatic involvement, 63.8% bilobar and 51.7% had more than or equal to five hepatic metastatic lesions. Sixteen patients (27.6%) had two or more organs involved. Six patients (10.71%) were treated with surgery, 25 patients (44.67%) received systemic chemotherapy, and 23 (41.07%) had best supportive care (BSC). The median overall survival (OS) for all the patients was 10.83 months [95% confidence interval (CI): 6.92–14.74]. Patients who had undergone chemotherapy presented 10.83 months (95% CI: 5.35–16.308) of median OS whereas the patients who did not undergo this treatment had an OS of 8.033 months (95% CI: 2.46–13.61). There were more patients with poor survival characteristics such as worse Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status in the BSC group. OS was poor in treated and BSC patients. Differences in survival are more likely to be related to patient characteristics rather than to a chemotherapy effect. Patients with MUM should be included in clinical trials evaluating other options with newer agents.

125I episcleral plaque brachytherapy in the treatment of choroidal melanoma: A single-institution experience in Spain

PURPOSE To analyze the results of episcleral plaque brachytherapy from the Catalan Institute of Oncology in Spain. MATERIALS AND METHODS From September 1996 through December 2004, 120 patients with choroidal melanoma (median age, 59 years) were treated with iodine-125 seeds at our institution. Patients were classified according to the criteria developed by the Collaborative Ocular Melanoma Study (COMS) group, as follows-COMS-I: 3 patients; COMS-II: 87 patients; COMS-III: 24 patients; and indeterminate COMS: 9 patients. Followup ranged from 1 year to 8.4 years. RESULTS Overall survival at 5 and 8 years was 83.9% and 73.3%, respectively. The 5- and 8-year specific survival rate was 85.7%. Local control was 88.2% and 72.7% at 5 and 8 years, respectively. The most common treatment-related toxicity was cataract formation (31.6% of cases), followed by radiation retinopathy (7.5%) and retinal detachment (4.1%). CONCLUSION The results of this institutional retrospective study confirm that the use of iodine-125 episcleral plaques to treat choroidal melanoma offers the potential for conserving a functioning eyeball. The toxicity profile is favorable and disease control is similar to other techniques.

Endoresection Versus Iodine-125 Plaque Brachytherapy for the Treatment of Choroidal Melanoma

PURPOSE To compare the effectiveness of pars plana vitrectomy endoresection with iodine-125 brachytherapy in the treatment of choroidal melanoma. DESIGN A nested case-control study (1:2) from a surgical cohort. METHODS The study comprised 81 choroidal melanoma patients treated with either endoresection or iodine-125 brachytherapy. Twenty-seven patients who had undergone endoresection were matched according to tumor height and postequatorial tumor location with 54 cases treated with iodine-125 brachytherapy. Metastatic disease, overall survival, local tumor recurrence, visual acuity, and secondary enucleation rates were analyzed and compared between groups. RESULTS Metastatic spread was observed in 11 patients in the iodine-125 brachytherapy group vs only 1 patient in the endoresection group (20.4% and 3.7%, respectively, P = .053). Fourteen patients died during follow-up: 11 in the brachytherapy arm vs 3 in the endoresection arm (20.4% and 11.1%, respectively, P = .238). For the iodine-125 brachytherapy and endoresection groups, respectively, the 5-year Kaplan-Meier estimates were as follows: overall survival, 81.5% vs 89.2% (log-rank test, P = .429;); relapse-free survival, 96.6% vs 92.4% (P = .2); visual acuity retention equal or superior to 20/200, 66.4% vs 59.9% (P = .083), and eye retention, 85.7% vs 87.8% (P = .942). CONCLUSIONS Endoresection for choroidal melanoma is an effective treatment modality in selected cases of posterior choroidal melanomas, with outcomes similar to those obtained with iodine-125 brachytherapy.

En face mode of swept-source optical coherence tomography in circumscribed choroidal haemangioma

Purpose To describe the findings in circumscribed choroidal haemangioma (CCH) using en face swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT). Methods En face images were obtained employing DRI-1 Atlantis OCT (Topcon, Tokyo, Japan), using a three-dimensional volumetric scan of 12×9 mm. Images were obtained from the retinal pigment epithelium to 1000 μm in depth of the tumour. Results Twenty-two eyes from 22 patients with the clinical diagnosis of CCH were included. In 20 eyes (90.9%), a characteristic pattern was visualised in the en face image across the vascular tumour. A multilobular pattern, similar to a honeycomb, with hyporeflective, confluent, oval or round areas corresponding with the lumen of the tumour vascular spaces, and hyper-reflective zones, which may represent the vessels walls and connective tissue of the tumour. Ten eyes (45.4%) showed a hyper-reflective halo surrounding the tumour. Seventeen tumours (77.2%) showed small diameter vessels at the inner zone and larger vessels in the outer area. Twelve patients (54.5%) had previously received treatment (photodynamic therapy, transpupillary thermotherapy, dexamethasone intravitreal implant or brachytherapy with ruthenium-106). No differences were found between treated and untreated patients in any of the measured parameters. Conclusions En face SS-OCT is a rapid, non-invasive, high-resolution, technology, which allows a complementary study to cross-sectional scans in CCH. A characteristic multilobular pattern, with a hyper-reflective halo surrounding the tumour, was found in en face SS-OCT images. No morphological differences were found between naïve patients and patients who received previous treatment.

Intravitreal Ranibizumab for Choroidal Neovascularization Secondary to Pathological Myopia: 12-Month Follow-Up

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of intravitreal ranibizumab in the treatment of choroidal neovascularization (CNV) due to pathological myopia (PM). Methods: This retrospective case series studied outcomes in patients with CNV secondary to PM who were treated with intravitreal ranibizumab. Patients underwent complete ophthalmic evaluation, which included best-corrected visual acuity testing measured with Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study charts, optical coherence tomography (OCT) and baseline fluorescein angiography (FA). Indications for retreatment included the persistence of subretinal fluid on OCT as well as hemorrhages and new CNV on FA. Patients were followed for a minimum of 12 months. Results: We treated 29 eyes in 29 patients; the mean age was 56.8 years. Thirteen eyes were naïve, while 16 had been previously treated with photodynamic therapy or intravitreal bevacizumab. The mean initial visual acuity was 44.8 letters; at the 12-month follow-up, it was 53.7 letters. The mean OCT foveal thickness decreased by 35.3 µm. Patients received an average of 1.38 injections. Statistically significant differences were observed both in visual acuity and in central foveal thickness. All subgroups had favorable outcomes. None of the patients developed injection-induced complications or drug-related side effects. Conclusion: Intravitreal injection of ranibizumab appears to be safe and efficacious in patients with CNV secondary to PM followed over a 12-month period.

Relative survival of patients with uveal melanoma managed in a single center.

To assess the 5-year relative survival of patients diagnosed with uveal melanoma (UM) in a single center. UM patients were recruited from 1995 to 2004 (N=155) and were followed until December 2008. Relative survival (RS) methods were used to assess excess mortality. An RS regression model was fitted by sex, age, tumor origin, treatment, and tumor size to estimate the excess hazard rate (EHR) of death from UM. The overall 5-year RS was 90%, lower in women (84.6%) than in men (100%), lower in patients older than 60 years (88.8%) compared with those younger than or of 60 years of age (94.8%). Large tumors (80.8%) showed lower RS than medium (95.1%) and small ones (98.3%). Enucleated patients (80.5%) had lower RS compared with those who received brachytherapy (93.6%) and other treatments (94.7%). A significant EHR was found for women (EHR: 3.65), patients older than 60 years (EHR: 2.25), large-sized melanoma (EHR: 2.45), and during the third (EHR: 5.37) and fourth year (EHR: 3.01) of follow-up. This is the first Spanish study in a single center reporting RS among UM patients, taking into account clinical characteristics. Prognostic factors that explained RS among UM patients were sex, age, tumor size, and the year of follow-up. We also found a peak of excess mortality from the third until the fourth year after diagnosis, which warrants strict follow-up of these patients during this time interval.