Bevacizumab for the treatment of neovascular age related macular degeneration.

PURPOSE To evaluate the decibel loss on the Macular threshold protocol of the Humphrey visual field as a reliable functional outcome of the intravitreal bevacizumab treatment. METHODS Thirteen patients were evaluated at baseline and on the week 6 for best corrected visual acuity, optical coherence tomography central macular thickness and decibel loss on Macular threshold protocol of the Humphrey visual field after 1.25 mg intravitreal injection of bevacizumab. The outcomes were analyzed separately and in correlation using the Wilcoxon signed ranks test. RESULTS The improvement of the optical coherence tomography and the Macular threshold protocol of the Humphrey visual field from baseline to week 6 were significant with p=0.032 and p=0.003, respectively. The visual acuity did not show a significant improvement. The correlation of the visual acuity and Macular threshold protocol of the Humphrey visual field was significant at baseline (p=0.041) and on week 6 (p=0.019). CONCLUSION The Macular threshold protocol of the Humphrey visual field significantly improved despite the fact that the best corrected visual acuity did not. The Macular threshold protocol of the Humphrey visual field correlated with the visual acuities significantly. The optical coherence tomography was significant to demonstrate improvement but did not correlate with best corrected visual acuity and Macular threshold protocol of the Humphrey visual field. These findings suggest that the Macular threshold protocol of the visual field may be a more reliable tool for evaluation of global macular function after intravitreal bevacizumab treatment.