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Evidence summaries

Anti-Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor for Diabetic Macular Oedema

Anti-vascular endothelial growth factors (anti-VEGF) appear to be effective for treating diabetic macular oedema compared to sham or no treatment. Level of evidence: "A"

The certainty of the evidence is downgraded by imprecision.

A Cochrane review [Abstract] 1 included 23 studies with a total of 3 513 subjects with diabetic macular oedema (DMO) and moderate vision loss. Ranibizumab was used as the reference drug for efficacy, medicines were akso compared to no treatment, sham, and laser. There were results at 2 years for ranibizumab, bevacizumab, aflibercept, and brolucizumab, and at one year for faricimab. A network meta-analysis showed improved vision in people with DMO with 3 to 4 in every 10 people being likely to experience an improvement of 3 or more lines visual acuity (VA) at one year. There were no clear differences between different drugs, but the certainty of this evidence is variable.

    References

    • Virgili G, Curran K,Lucenteforte E, et al. Anti-vascular endothelial growth factor for diabetic macular oedema: a network meta-analysis. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2023;(6):CD007419.[PubMed]

Primary/Secondary Keywords