by Mr Anish Shah

Systemic adverse events from eye injections for diabetic macular swelling

This large American claims database based retrospective cohort study examined over 23,000 patients receiving antiVEGF injections for diabetic macular swelling and reassuringly found no increased risk of stroke, heart attack or major bleeding events, when compared with patients receiving macular laser therapy for the same condition: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30292542/ However this study is based on US patients… Read More

by Mr Anish Shah

Anti-VEGF injections for proliferative diabetic retinopathy

Retinal specialists knew that this would be on the cards at some point, but managing proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) with regular intravitreal injections is not standard practice in the UK. This is perhaps due to cost, service pressures, or the fear of non-attendance or service-initiated re-schedulings causing re-proliferation at the retina and subsequent complications such… Read More

by Mr Anish Shah

The risks of not using iodine during intravitreal injections

Intravitreal injections are frequently administered to patients with wet macular degeneration, retinal vein occlusion or diabetic eye disease. During the injection procedure, povidone-iodine drops are used to disinfect the ocular surface, which reduces the risk of post-injection infection in the eye (endophthalmitis – which is very rare but can cause significant visual loss if it… Read More

by Mr Anish Shah

Intravitreal anti-VEGF injections do not increase risk of stroke, heart attack or death

This is a large and important study from Singapore. When Avastin was given in large doses intravenously for cancer treatment, an increased risk of stroke was observed. Therefore there was a theoretical risk that even the tiny doses of Avastin given into the eye could also be associated with a higher risk of stroke. This… Read More