Half of fellow eyes go on to develop new DME over 2 years

Approximately half of patients who had diabetic macular edema (DME) in just 1 eye at baseline went on to develop DME in the fellow eye over 2 years, according to a study.

Predictors of this development included shorter duration of diabetes and thicker study eye CST.

In this post hoc analysis of data from the VISTA and VIVID studies, 44.9% of fellow eyes developed DME in the intravitreal aflibercept injection (IAI) 2 mg q4 weeks (n = 245) group, 44.2% in the IAI 2 mg q8 weeks (n = 258) group, and 42.9% in the laser control (n = 252) group over 100 weeks.

In the combined treatment group there was a mean time of approximately 6 months to the development of DME.

A multivariable regression analysis found patients were at higher risk of developing DME in the fellow eye if they had shorter diabetes duration (hazard ratio [HR] per 10-year decrease, 1.16; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03, 1.30; P = 0.0160) and thicker baseline study eye central subfield thickness (HR per 10-µm increase, 1.01; 95% CI, 1.01, 1.02; P = 0.0002)

Reference
Dhoot DS, Moini H, Reed K, et al. Incidence of New Diabetic Macular Edema in Fellow Eyes of Patients in the VISTA and VIVID Studies. Retina. 2022;doi: 10.1097/IAE.0000000000003658. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36265076.