Nanocarriers of nanotechnology in retinal diseases

AbstractWe are approaching a new era of retinal pharmacotherapy where new drugs are rapidly being worked out for the treatment of posterior-segment disease. Recent development in ocular drug delivery systems research has provided new insights into drug development, and the use of nanoparticles for drug delivery is thus a promising excellent approach for advanced therapy of ocular diseases. The primary goal is to develop a variety of drug delivery systems to complement and further enhance the efficacy of the available new medications. The ideal sustained release technology will provide a high level of safety with continuous release over an extended period of time while maintaining almost total drug bioactivity.The use of nanocarriers, such as cyclodextrin nanoparticle suspension, liposomes, nanospheres and, nanoemulsions for gene therapy of retinal diseases has been highlighted in this review

The Effects of Intravitreal Bevacizumab in Infectious and Noninfectious Uveitic Macular Edema

Background/Aims. To assess the effect of intravitreal bevacizumab injection (IVBI) for the treatment of macular edema due to infectious and noninfectious uveitides. Design. Retrospective interventional case series. Methods. A chart review was performed on all the patients who were diagnosed with uveitic macular edema (UME) and received 1.25 mg of IVBI at two referral centers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. All included patients had their visual acuity and macular thickness analyzed at baseline and at 1 and 3 months following IVBI and any sign of reactivation was noted. Results. The mean age of patients was 41±16 years with a mean followup of 4±1 months. Ten patients had idiopathic intermediate uveitis, 9 patients had Behcet’s disease, 10 had idiopathic panuveitis, and twelve patients had presumed ocular tuberculosis uveitis. Following IVBI, the mean LogMAR visual acuity improved from 0.8±0.8 at baseline to 0.4±0.5 at 1 month and 0.3±0.5 at 3 months (P<0.002, at 3 months). The mean macular thickness was 430±132 μm at baseline. Following IVBI macular thickness improved to 286±93 μm at 1 month and to 265±88 μm at 3 months of followup (P<0.001, at 3 months). Conclusion. Bevacizumab was effective in the management of UME associated with both infectious and noninfectious uveitides. Intravitreal bevacizumab induced remission of UME with infectious uveitis and had no immunosuppressive effect against infectious agents

Tremendous result of bevacizumab in malignant hypertensive retinopathy

Signs of hypertensive retinopathy are common and are correlated with elevated blood pressure. Patients who have swelling of both optic discs and very high blood pressure (i.e., malignant retinopathy) need urgent antihypertensive treatment. A patient was reported with malignant hypertensive retinopathy who recovered promptly following single intravitreal bevacizumab injection. Intravitreal bevacizumab (1.25 mg/0.05 mL) was injected in two eyes of a patient having malignant hypertensive retinopathy with optic disc edema, macular edema, and retinal exudates. A complete ophthalmic examination, including the best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), central macular thickness on optical coherence tomography (OCT), and fluorescein angiography (FAG), was performed before and after the treatments. Two eyes in a patient received a single intravitreal injection of bevacizumab had improvement of macular edema on OCT at 1 month and decreased fluorescein leakage on FAG 3 months after the treatment, which led to improvements in the BCVA both eyes. The results suggest that intravitreal bevacizumab injections might be a useful and safe adjunctive treatment of malignant hypertensive retinopathy, in addition to proper medical management of malignant hypertension