Effect of Avastin on intraocular pressure before and after intravitreal injections

Intravitreal Avastin (bevacizumab) injection is reportedly accompanied by ocular and systemic side-effects. Our enquiry assesses whether there are any differences between intraocular pressure (IOP) in baseline and on the day after injection in patients treated for retinal disease.
In this experimental study, 82 eyes with retinal diseases that had indication for anti-VEGF and were treated with injections of intravitreal bevacizumab were taken as the case group, and 82 healthy eyes were considered as controls. The IOP was measured by non-contact tonometry in both the healthy eyes and the eyes with retinal diseases before and 24 hours after intervention. Data were analyzed by paired t test and independent t-test in SPSS 19.0 software. Significance level was set at P Results of the study showed that the mean IOP before injection was not significantly different in either groups (p=0.51). However, it was significantly lower after injection than before it in both case and control eyes (p Our study did not find an increased IOP in bevacizumab-treated eyes when compared to fellow control eyes. Further studies with a greater sample size are needed to evaluate whether an increased number of ranibizumab injections is associated with IOP changes.