Avastin and Lucentis both pose same risk of infection

Doctors who were quick to come the defense of using the much more costly Lucentis to treat macular degeneration rather than its cheaper counterpart Avastin tried to argue that Lucentis had a lower risk of infection. However, a recent study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania found that argument is not true. In the study, more than 58,000 insurance claims were reviewed. More than 380,000 injections of the two drugs, Avastin and Lucentis were documented and the researchers found that the two drugs carried an equally low risk of infection. While both drugs work in the same way by preventing the growth of abnormal blood vessels around the macula, Lucentis comes in ready-to-use vials and costs $2,000 a dose. Avastin, on the other hand, costs from $50 to $80 a dose but since it is packaged in larger doses it has to be divided into smaller doses by a compounding pharmacy. The risk of infection for both Avastin and Lucentis is around one in several thousand. Both of the drugs have been found to be equally effective in treating wet macular degeneration.*