Intravitreal ranibizumab treatment of retinal angiomatous proliferation.

Purpose: To determine the efficacy of intravitreal injections of ranibizumab in the treatment of retinal angiomatous proliferation (RAP) in neovascular age-related macular degeneration.

Methods: Retrospective, consecutive case series of 26 eyes (26 patients) treated with intravitreal injections of 0.5 mg ranibizumab for RAP. Patients received intravitreal injections at monthly intervals during upload phase for a 3-month period.

Results:   Mean visual acuity before treatment was 0.75 ± 0.38logMAR (mean ± SD, n = 26). In the upload phase, mean visual acuity improved 4 weeks after the initial injection to 0.6 ± 0.37logMAR (n = 26) and to 0.53 ± 0.34logMAR (n = 26) 4 weeks after the third monthly intravitreal injection of ranibizumab. The mean optical coherence tomography (OCT) central foveal thickness reduced from 345 ± 55 μm at baseline to 215 ± 87 μm at 3 months. In the maintenance phase, mean visual acuity after 6 months was 0.66 ± 0.38logMAR (n = 12) and 0.7 ± 0.37logMAR after 9 months (n = 6). The mean OCT central foveal thickness was 259 ± 59 μm (n = 13) at 6 months and 280 ± 127 μm (n = 6) at nine-month follow-up.

Conclusion: Intravitreal ranibizumab resulted in an improvement of visual acuity 4 weeks after the first injection but was more pronounced after 3 months. A reduction in leakage and OCT central foveal thickness was seen 3 months after the commencement of treatment.