Bevacizumab vs ranibizumab for neovascular age-related macular degeneration in Chinese patients

AIM: To compare the clinical efficacy of intravitreal injections of bevacizumab and ranibizumab for treating Chinese patients with neovascular age -related macular degeneration (AMD). METHODS: Among 60 Chinese patients with exudative AMD (60 eyes), 28 received intravitreal bevacizumab injections (1.25mg) and 32 received intravitreal ranibizumab injections (0.5mg), once a month for 3 months and were followed for a total of 6 months. Monthly optical coherence tomography (OCT) was used to determine whether the patients received additional treatments during the follow -up. We compared the baseline and 6-month follow-up values of mean best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and central retinal thickness (CRT) in both groups of patients. We also compared the occurrence of adverse events. RESULTS: At the 6-month follow-up, the mean BCVA (logMAR) of the bevacizumab and ranibizumab treatment groups improved from the baseline measurements of 0.72 +/- 0.23 and 0.73 +/- 0.22 to 0.47 +/- 0.14 and 0.45 +/- 0.20, respectively (P <0.05 for both groups). However, the change was not significantly different between the two groups. As evaluated by OCT, CRT decreased from 366.71 +/- 34.72 mu m and 352 +/- 36.9 mu m at baseline to 250.86 +/- 41.51 mu m and 243.22 +/- 41.38 mu m in the bevacizumab and ranibizumab groups, respectively (P <0.05 for both groups). However, the change was not significantly different between the two groups. There were no severe local adverse reactions or systemic adverse events. CONCLUSION: Intravitreal bevacizumab and ranibizumab have equivalent effects on BCVA and CRT and appeare safe over the short-term.