Comparison of Eylea® with Lucentis® as first-line therapy in patients with treatment-naïve neovascular age-related macular degeneration in real-life clinical practice: retrospective case-series analysis

BACKGROUND: To identify differences between Ranibizumab and Aflibercept in treatment-naïve patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nvAMD) in a real-life clinical setting. METHODS: We compared two groups of patients with a fairly similar prognosis either receiving Aflibercept or Ranibizumab within a pro re nata regimen for 1 year. Changes in visual acuity (letters) and central foveal thickness (CFT) and frequency of injections after completing the loading phase were evaluated using two separate multivariate mixed linear models. RESULTS: When correcting for baseline differences between the Aflibercept (11 eyes) and Ranibizumab (16 eyes) group, there was neither divergence in visual acuity (−0.97 letters (95 % CI. −6.06-4.12); p = 0.709), nor a significant difference in the reduction of CFT (−25.16 μm, 95 % CI; (−78.01-27.68); p = 0.351) between the two groups 1 year after treatment initiation. Also, the number of injection did not differ (0.04 (95 % CI; −0.16-0.09); p = 0.565). CONCLUSION: In contrast to health claims, treatment-naïve nvAMD, Ranibizumab and Aflibercept were equivalent in terms of functional and morphologic outcomes and number of injections when studied in real-life clinical practice.