The following is a summary of “Baseline characteristics associated with the incidence of intraocular inflammation after the intravitreous injection of brolucizumab,” published in the December 2023 issue of Opthalmology by Hoshi et al.

Researchers conducted a retrospective study to identify baseline characteristics associated with intraocular inflammation (IOI) following intravitreal brolucizumab (IVBr) injections for treating neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD).

They involved 66 eyes of 62 consecutive patients with nAMD who received IVBr (18 eyes were treatment-naïve, and 48 eyes had switched from other anti-vascular endothelial growth factor [VEGF] therapy). Baseline clinical characteristics in non-IOI and IOI groups were compared.

The results showed that 6 months after IVBr, a dry macula was achieved at a high rate; however, IOI occurred in 8 of 66 eyes (12.1%; all had switched therapy) during the study period. Baseline characteristics, such as age, sex, nAMD type, lens status, visual acuity, central macular thickness, and history of diabetes, were similar between the groups. The IOI group had more previous anti-VEGF injections before IVBr (P=0.004), and the ratio of patients with a laser flare-cell photometry (LFCP) value over 15 pc/ms was higher in the IOI group (P=0.017). Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that a more significant number of previous anti-VEGF injections (OR: 1.12, P=0.006; AUC: 0.82, cut-off score: 14.0) and an LFCP value over 15 pc/ms (OR: 81.6, P=0.031) were significantly associated with the incidence of IOI after IVBr.

Investigators concluded that a high number of prior anti-VEGF injections (>14) and LFCP >15 pc/ms predicted IOI after IVBr in nAMD eyes.

Source: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10792-023-02870-4