Early response of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) in diabetic macular edema (DME) management: microperimetry and optical coherence tomography (OCT) findings: a pilot study at national eye center of third world country.

Purpose: To evaluate early response of retinal sensitivity (RS) and retinal morphology in diabetic macular edema (DME) patients after intravitreal anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) treatment.

Methods: Sixteen eyes of 12 DME patients were included in this study conducted prospectively. All eyes underwent functional and morphologic examination of the macular area using microperimetry and optical coherence tomography (OCT) before and after intravitreal anti-VEGF injection. To determine significant differences between the values, paired t test was used. A correlation between CMT and RS was made using Spearman's test.

Results: Patients were evaluated at baseline, one week and one month after injection. The central macular thickness (CMT) decreased significantly from 449.33 ± 100.79 μm to 427.94 ± 85.76 μm to 357.93 ± 75.92 μm. The RS improved significantly from 7.94 ± 6.43 dB to 11.09 ± 7.42 dB at one week and to 14.22 ± 7.66 dB at one month after treatment. The CMT was significant negatively correlated to RS (r=-0.259, p = < 0.001), with decay of 0.025 dB for every 1 μm increase of CMT.

Conclusions: Retinal thickening due to DME can be adequately quantified using OCT, while microperimetry can offer information about retinal sensitivity in the exact location. Therefore, microperimetry can be a useful tool in predicting the functional outcome and determining the efficacy of anti-VEGF treatment for DME patients.