Intravitreal Injetions:

Wet macular degeneration is the most acute form the ARMD, affecting 1.7 million Americans. Neovascular AMD is characterized by the presence of choroidal neovascularization (CNV). In the CNV cascade, hyperpermeable blood vessels grow out through Bruch’s membrane into layers of the retina. These abnormal blood vessels can lead to retinal hemorrhaging, scarring, retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) detachments, and RPE tears

Intravitreal Kenalog is a medication that has been proven to help treat eye conditions like refractory cystoid macular edema from Irvine-Gass or branch retinal vein occlusions, diabetic macular edema, and some cases of exudative macular degeneration.

Common side effects of intravitreal injections include conjunctival hemorrhage, eye pain, and vitreous floaters. Intravitreal Kenalog can also cause an increased intraocular pressure. There are some extremely rare serious adverse effects, including severe inflammation, endophthalmitis and detached retina with all intravitreal injections.

Macugen is a medication aimed at slowing vision loss associated with the neovascular forms of age-related macular degeneration. Macugen received U.S. Food and Drug Administration marketing approval in December 2004. There were significant beneficial outcomes for many people undergoing two years of treatment during FDA clinical trials. Macugen is injected into affected eyes once every six weeks. MACUGEN selectively blocks VEGF165, which interrupts the VEGF cascade and associated choroidal neovascularization. VEGF is a protein that is thought to be responsible for angioneogenesis which is the production of new blood vessels, a primary symptomatic change in the wet-type of age related macular degeneration. This slows the progression of CNV associated with all subtypes of neovascular AMD.

A new medication called Lucentis, approved by the FDA this June, is administered intravitreally once a month. Lucentis(TM) (ranibizumab) is a humanized therapeutic antibody fragment developed at Genentech and designed to bind and inhibit VEGF-A. Two studies in the New England Journal of Medicine report on patients given monthly injections for two years. More than 80 percent maintained their vision and up to 40 percent actually improved their sight significantly.