The Effectiveness of Intravitreal Ranibizumab in Patients with Diabetic Macular Edema Who Have Failed to Respond to Intravitreal Bevacizumab

PURPOSE: To investigate the response to intravitreal ranibizumab after failure of intravitreal bevacizumab in patients with diabetic macular edema (DME). METHODS: Demographics, visual acuity (VA), central macular thickness (CMT), and HbA1C were retrospectively collected from DME patients treated with second-line intravitreal ranibizumab at a tertiary hospital in 2012-2013 and followed for at least 3 months. RESULTS: Twenty-two patients (26 eyes) were included in the study, with a mean (±SD) age of 66 ± 8.1 years and followed for an average of 28.36 months. The mean number of intravitreal bevacizumab injections was 7.3 ± 2.8, and of intravitreal ranibizumab injections 5.11 ± 2.4. After 3 ranibizumab injections, 57% of eyes showed improvement in VA. The change in VA was statistically significant (p = 0.044) in those eyes where the pretreatment acuity for the second-line therapy was <20/40 (logMAR 0.3). CMT decreased from 435.95 ± 83.28 to 373.69 ± 44.39 µm (p = 0.01). The number of ranibizumab injections was significantly correlated with the change in CMT (p = 0.037). CONCLUSION: Intravitreal treatment with ranibizumab can be efficacious in eyes with DME that have failed to respond to bevacizumab.