Study Finds No Difference Between Bevacizumab, Ranibizumab for Macular Degeneration
BOSTON -- October 4, 2010 -- Researchers have conducted a study that failed to show a difference in efficacy between bevacizumab (Avastin) and ranibizumab (Lucentis) for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
The study, which appears online in the journal Eye, is believed to be the first study to describe 1-year outcomes of a prospective, double-masked, randomised study directly comparing bevacizumab with ranibizumab.
While both drugs have shown independently to be effective in treating wet AMD, it was uncertain if both drugs were equally efficacious or if either one was better.
Last October, these same researchers published early, 6-month outcomes of the same study, which also failed to show a difference in efficacy between these 2 drugs for treating AMD.
In this study, patients were enrolled in a 2:1 ratio to receive injections of either bevacizumab (n = 15) or ranibizumab (n = 7) every month for the first 3 months, followed by monthly examination and testing. They received further injections on an as needed basis for 1 year.
There was no significant difference in visual acuity and anatomic outcomes between the 2 groups.
Both groups had an average improvement in vision of 1.5 lines on the vision testing chart, and only 1 patient in the ranibizumab group lost a significant amount of vision (>= 3 lines).
Patients in the bevacizumab group underwent an average of 8 injections over 1 year, while patients in the ranibizumab group underwent an average of 4 injections.
"With the exception that total injections given to subjects over 1 year were significantly different between the 2 treatment arms, visual and anatomic outcomes at 1 year failed to show a significant difference between both groups," said lead author Manju Subramanian, MD, Boston University School of Medicine, and the VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, Massachusetts.
According to the authors, further studies with larger sample sizes are warranted.
SOURCE: Boston University Medical Center
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