Dive Brief:
- A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) shows that treatment with Roche's Lucentis (ranibizumab for injection) is more effective than laser therapy or panretinal photocoagulation (PRP) for proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR).
- PDR is the leading cause of blindness in individuals with diabetes.
- The study, which was conducted by the Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network, evaluated the use of Lucentis injections versus standard therapy in 305 patients with PDR.
Dive Insight:
Standard treatments for PDR are associated with several adverse side effects. For example, laser therapy is associated with reduced night vision and loss of peripheral vision, as well as sometimes worsening existing diabetic macular edema.
In this study, patients who received Lucentis had slightly better central vision, much less loss of peripheral vision, and less risk of needing surgery, compared with laser-treated patients.
This study could lead to improvements in the standard of care for the roughly 7.7 million people in the U.S. who have diabetic retinopathy.