Treatment guidelines recommend antiangiogenic agents that block or neutralize vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) as first-line therapy for wet AMD. Adjunctive therapies are also available.
Ranibizumab and aflibercept are approved anti-VEGF drugs. Bevacizumab, another VEGF inhibitor, is approved to treat several cancers but is not currently approved by regulatory bodies to treat AMD. Bevacizumab is often prescribed for off-label use, in part because of its efficacy, effectiveness, and favorable cost profile.
PDT may offer the chance to help the subset of patients who experience disappointing visual outcomes with antiangiogenics alone. Although the pivotal studies DENALI and MONT BLANC did not show a significant benefit of adding PDT to anti-VEGF therapy in new-onset neovascular AMD, several others have shown that combination therapy did require fewer anti-VEGF injections. In addition, recent cost-effectiveness studies on the use of anti-VEGF therapies have shown this newer therapy to be highly cost-effective over older therapies like PDT.
Learn more about approved treatments and experimental approaches to improving management of wet AMD.
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Any views expressed above are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of WebMD or Medscape.
Cite this: F. Ryan Prall. Fast Five Quiz: Exudative (Wet) Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) - Medscape - Sep 24, 2021.
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