Researchers report good success treating macular edema secondary to central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO) or branch retinal vein occlusion (BRVO) with Avastin (bevacizumab), but finds that the improvements are short-lived and and there is a high recurrence rate. Numerous studies have investigated the utility of anti-VEGF therapy to combat...

Intravitreal Avastin (bevacizumab) administration causes elevation of blood pressure, according to a new research report. The systemic use of Avastin in cancer treatment has been accompanied by increased incidences of systemic hypertension, but little is known about the systemic effects of intravitreal Avastin. Few systemic side effects have...

Public health authorities in Canada are investigating a spike in cases of sterile endophthalmitis among patients being treated for AMD with Avastin. First noticed in British Columbia, there appears to be a rise in cases in other parts of the country as well. And now authorities are trying to draw the potential problem to the attention of the...

A single injection of Avastin (bevacizumab) is safe and effective for polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV) over 3 months according to a new study. PCV is characterized by an abnormal network of polyp-like blood vessels within the choroid. The polypoidal lesion often produces exudative detachment of the overlying retinal pigment epithelium...

Patients with neovascular AMD that receive 3 monthly Avastin (bevacizumab) injections before switching to an as-needed protocol do better than patients that are treated as-needed after the first injection. There are several ongoing studies investigating the efficacy of various strategies designed to decrease the number of required anti-VEGF...

A new study finds that optical coherence tomography (OCT) subretinal fluid measurements correleted well with visual acuity recovery following Avastin therapy for neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The advent of high-definition "spectral domain" OCT permits more detailed analysis of the anatomic changes in the retina than is...

A pharmacokinetics study of Avastin in human eyes reports that the aqueous half-life of 1.5 mg intravitreally injected Avastin (bevacizumab) is 9.82 days, essentially identical to the reported half-life of Lucentis. It has recently been reported that patients undergoing Avastin therapy for neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD)...

Tom Chang presented a study comparing remission intervals between Lucentis and Avastin in patients with neovascular AMD at the 26th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Retina Specialists in October 2008. In this retrospective analysis, patients were given 3 consecutive injections of either Lucentis (ranibizumab) or Avastin (bevacizumab)...

Intravenous Avastin was found to be safe and effective in treating patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to a new study. This uncontrolled, prospective institutional cohort study involving 16 patients with neovascular AMD were treated with intravenous Avastin. Half the subjects received a higher dose of the...

A large retrospective case series finds that the the overall incidence of endophthalmitis associated with office based intravitreal injections of Avastin and Lucentis is 1 in 4,500 injections. All patients receiving at least one injection of intravitreal Avastin (bevacizumab) or Lucentis (ranibizumab) at four large clinics were included in this...