Update on Treatments for Wet AMD: Increasing Use of Avastin Injections for AMD

In past blogs we discussed various forms of treatment for neovascular or wet AMD. At The University of Iowa we performed the following treatments for wet AMD during the months of September-November of this year:

You can see that the number of Avastin® injections has increased sharply.

The Avastin® seems to work faster at causing resolution of the fluid and neovascularization than the other two treatments. To my knowledge we have not seen any complications from the Avastin® injections.

The number of Macugen® injections and Visudyne® treatments is holding steady. I don’t know how many of these Macugen® and Visudyne® treatments were repeats and how many were new patients. We should be able to tell if their number is changing in future months.
In the past, I have been impressed with Visudyne® plus intraocular Kenalog® given on the same day. The combination treatment seemed to work well in the short run, perhaps because the Kenalog® caused resolution of the subretinal fluid. After twelve months however, I’m not sure the patients with this combination treatment have done much better than patients who have had Visudyne® alone. The exception may be patients who have small CNV who still seem to do better with the addition of Kenalog® after Visudyne®.


As before, neither I nor my colleagues are paid by any company to promote or perform any treatment. We try to decide what’s best for our patient. I’ll keep you posted.