Patient criteria vital to VMA success

Take-home message: Postmarketing clinical experience with ocriplasmin shows treatment success is higher when patients are chosen based on ideal criteria. No safety signals have emerged, but safety is being investigated more closely in ongoing trials.

 

 

By Cheryl Guttman Krader; Reviewed by David R. Chow, MD

Toronto-Ocriplasmin treatment (Jetrea, ThromboGenics) for symptomatic vitreomacular adhesion (VMA) show that it is possible to increase the likelihood of success through careful patient selection, according to data reported by U.S. surgeons.

Even so, use of ocriplasmin by American surgeons still lags behind surgery as the preferred method for managing VMA/vitreomacular traction, even in ideal patients.

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David R. Chow, MD, noted that pooled data from U.S. centers using ocriplasmin since the product’s commercial release show the treatment success rate (resolution of VMA at day 28 post-injection) is practically doubled compared with the rate achieved in the premarketing pivotal trials (MIVI-TRUST), 50% versus 26.5%, respectively.

The improvement is attributable to the application of pivotal trial findings identifying predictors for response, said Dr. Chow, assistant professor of ophthalmology and vision sciences, University of Toronto, and co-director of the Toronto Retina Institute, Toronto.

“In Canada, ocriplasmin has only been available for 9 months, and so far, more than 200 treatments have been done,” he said. “We are reviewing the outcomes for a later presentation, but anecdotally, the results are very good as well with adherence to the ideal patient criteria for case selection.”

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