Eylea effective for Diabetic Retinopathy

A two-year clinical trial has found that diabetic patients suffering from severe vision loss from diabetic macular edema benefit the most from receiving treatment with Eylea versus Avastin or Lucentis. Eylea was just approved for use by the FDA for treating diabetic macular edema patients last year. The study was conducted by the National Institutes of Health and involved 660 diabetic macular edema patients at 89 locations around the United States who had an average age of 61 and had a diagnosis of type 1 or type 2 diabetes for at least a year. Participants were chosen at random to receive Eylea, Avastin or Lucentis for a two year time period. While there was no significant difference between the three drugs in treating patients who had mild vision loss (visual acuity of 20/40 or better) there was a notabe improvement in patients with severe vision loss (visual acuity of 20/50 or worse). A gain of 3.5 additional lines on the visual acuity test were noted for those patients receiving Eylea treatments compared to 2.5 lines in those receiving Avastin and 3 lines in those receiving Lucentis.*