Managing Insufficiently Responsive DMO Patients Post-NICE Guidance

A satellite symposium, chaired by Usha Chakravarthy, was held at the Royal College of Ophthalmologists Annual Congress in Birmingham, entitled Managing Insufficiently Responsive DMO Patients Post-NICE Guidance. While therapies targeting vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), such as ranibizumab, have proven benefit in the treatment of diabetic macular oedema (DMO), patients with disease of longer duration may not respond as well to these therapies, a result of the more complex pathophysiology of chronic DMO, involving retinal inflammation. Corticosteroids offer a multi-factorial treatment approach, acting on numerous biochemical and anatomical pathways, unlike ranibizumab and bevacizumab, which inhibit VEGF and consequently confer their benefits through the modification of a single pathway. The ILUVIEN® intravitreal implant, contains 190 μg of fluocinolone acetonide (FAc), with an average release rate of 0.2 μg/ day for up to 36 months. Its benefits are most pronounced in patients with chronic DMO. ILUVIEN is indicated for the treatment of vision impairment associated with chronic DMO, considered insufficiently responsive to available therapies. The effectiveness of ILUVIEN was demonstrated in phase III clinical trials, and these benefits are being replicated in routine clinical practice. In this symposium, the speakers described clinical scenarios that demonstrated the utility of ILUVIEN in patients with DMO that are insufficiently responsive to currently available first-line therapies.