Safety of recent ophthalmic drugs and devices for wet macular degeneration.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: With frequent antivascular endothelial growth factors (VEGF) injections well established as the standard of care in neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD), focus has now shifted towards decreasing treatment burden without compromising safety and efficacy. This review summarizes clinical stage and recently approved drugs and devices for nAMD, with an emphasis paid to safety concerns and their implications for product adoption. RECENT FINDINGS: Three strategies have emerged to decrease the treatment burden associated with the current standard of care: more durable intravitreal agents, sustained-release modalities and gene therapy. The appearance of biosimilars will further impact drug availability and cost. As patterns of adverse events emerge from clinical trial or postmarketing surveillance data, manufacturers have proactively responded by appointing independent review committees or issuing voluntary recalls. However, the example of one biosimilar approved outside of the USA and European Union demonstrates how early safety concerns, even when addressed by substantive data, can generate lingering uncertainty. SUMMARY: As the number of promising new treatments in nAMD continues to grow, so too does the amount of data that providers must sift through. The perception of safety surrounding first movers in each new therapeutic area is sure to affect adoption of that modality more broadly.

Sebaceous carcinoma masquerading as ocular mucous membrane pemphigoid.

Sebaceous carcinoma is a known mimicker of benign conditions, leading to frequent delays in diagnosis and proper treatment. We present two patients with chronic cicatrizing conjunctivitis initially diagnosed as ocular mucous membrane pemphigoid (MMP) and later found to have sebaceous carcinoma. Both patients presented with unilateral conjunctivitis that failed to improve with topical and systemic therapy, eventually developing fornix foreshortening and extensive symblepharon. Case 1 was diagnosed with ocular MMP based on clinical features alone, while Case 2 was diagnosed with biopsy-negative disease. Months to years later, both patients developed lid lesions found to be sebaceous carcinoma and underwent exenteration. As diagnosis and treatment of ocular MMP without positive direct immunofluorescence testing becomes increasingly accepted, clinicians should consider sebaceous carcinoma as the initial diagnosis or as a developing phenomenon during immunosuppression in the setting of chronic inflammation. A low threshold for repeat biopsy should be maintained.

Association of Health Insurance Status With Severity and Treatment Among Infants With Retinopathy of Prematurity.

This study describes retinopathy of prematurity treatment practices using Medicaid and commercial claims databases. Infants with Medicaid tend to be sicker overall and have higher rates of retinopathy of prematurity requiring treatment than those with commercial insurance. Among patients who required treatment, those with Medicaid were more likely to receive anti-vascular endothelial growth factor than laser treatment. [J Pediatr Ophthalmol Strabismus. 2023;60(6):e75-e78.].

Smartphone application links severity of retinopathy of prematurity to early motor behavior in a cohort of high-risk preterm infants.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the General Movement Assessment (GMA) with the Motor Optimality Score-Revised (MOS-R) as a neurodevelopmental marker in infants with retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). METHODS: Infants screened prospectively for ROP were evaluated at 3 months' post-term age using a smartphone application to complete the GMA and MOS-R. Results were analyzed by ROP severity. RESULTS: Of 105 enrolled infants, 83 completed the study. Of these, 54 (65%) had any ROP, 32 (39%) had severe ROP, and 13 (16%) had type 1 ROP. The proportion with aberrant GMA was significantly higher in infants with severe ROP (14/32 [44%]) compared with infants who had milder ROP (8/51 [16%]; P = 0.006). Of those with severe ROP, there was no significant difference comparing infants with type 1 ROP treated with bevacizumab (7/13 [54%]) to infants with type 2 ROP without treatment (7/19 [37%]; P = 0.47). Although the presence of any ROP, stage of ROP, and severe ROP each predicted lower MOS-R scores on univariate analyses, only severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia and markers of brain injury remained significant in the multivariate analysis. CONCLUSIONS: The GMA was a convenient, short-term method of data collection with low attrition. Although severe ROP initially appeared linked to poor early motor scores, this association is likely confounded by neurological and respiratory complications, which frequently accompany severe ROP.