Relation between reduction of foveal thickness and visual acuity in diabetic macular edema treated with intravitreal triamcinolone.

Abstract

To evaluate the correlation between improvement in visual acuity and the reduction of foveal thickness after a single intravitreal injection of 4 mg of triamcinolone in diabetic macular edema. Prospective, interventional, nonrandomized clinical trial. In a prospective study 24 eyes with diabetic macular edema were treated with an intravitreal injection of 4 mg of triamcinolone acetonide. Best-corrected logMAR visual acuity and optical coherence tomography were performed at baseline and 3 months after the treatment. At baseline the average foveal thickness was 462 +/- 154 microm (95% confidence interval, 397-527 microm) and at 3 months 257 +/-114 microm (95% confidence interval, 209-305 microm) (P < .0001). The best-corrected logMAR average visual acuity was 60.5 +/- 10.5 (95% confidence interval, 56.0-65.0) ETDRS letters at baseline compared with 65.5 +/- 11.1 (95% confidence interval, 60.8-70.1) 3 months after the injection (P = .0001). There was no correlation between the improvement in visual acuity and the reduction of foveal thickness (r = 0.054, P = .8), but there was a correlation between reduction in foveal thickness and the age of the patients (r = 0.53, P = .008). A single injection of 4 mg of intravitreal triamcinolone acetonide effectively reduces the foveal thickness in diabetic macular edema and improves visual acuity, but there does not appear to be a strong correlation between the reduction of foveal thickness and the improvement in visual acuity.