ISSN 0886-3067

Volume No 27 Issue No 3

Abstracts

Mitchell et al have shown that treatment with ranibizumab as monotherapy and combined with laser treatment is superior to laser treatment alone in rapidly improving and sustaining visual acuity in patients with visual impairment due to diabetic macular edema (DME). The 12 - month RESTORE study involved 345 patients with diabetes mellitus and visual impairment due to DME. One hundred and sixteen patients were randomized to ranibizumab + sham laser, 118 to ranibizumab+laser, and 111 to sham injections+laser. Ranibizumab alone and combined with laser proved superior to laser monotherapy in improving the mean average change in best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) from baseline through Month 12 (+6.1 and +5.9 vs. +0.8). By Month 12, a significantly larger proportion of patients had a BCVA letter score ?15 and BCVA letter score level >73 with ranibizumab and ranibizumab+laser vs. laser alone. In addition, these patients quality of life improved significantly during the study period. In conclusion Ranibizumab consistently improved BCVA across all patient subgroups, including patients with focal or diffuse DME.