Outcomes of vitrectomy, complete pan-retinal photocoagulation, and endoscopic cyclophotocoagulation surgery after anti-VEGF treatment in neovascular glaucoma

Purpose

To establish a comprehensive treatment strategy and evaluate the efficacy of combination of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) injection, pars plana vitrectomy (PPV), endoscopic pan-retinal photocoagulation (PRP), and endoscopic cyclophotocoagulation (ECP) surgery for neovascular glaucoma (NVG) patients.

Methods

This retrospective study included 30 patients (30 eyes) who were suffering from NVG and treated with PPV & PRP & ECP (ECP group, 16 eyes), or Ahmed glaucoma valve implantation (Ahmed group, 14 eyes). The intraocular pressure (IOP), number of postoperative anti-glaucoma medications, best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), successful rate of surgery, and postoperative complications were recorded and statistically analyzed at the time points of preoperative, 1-day, 1-month, 3-months, 6-months, and 12-months after operation.

Results

An obvious reduction in IOP and number of postoperative anti-glaucoma medications were observed in both the ECP group and Ahmed group after operation (P ​< ​0.05), and the ECP group showed a significantly lower IOP compared to the Ahmed group at the 6-months (P ​= ​0.014) and 12-months (P ​= ​0.047) postoperative time points, while there was no significant difference of medication number between the two groups except for 1-day after surgery. The BCVA showed no marked difference between the two groups preoperatively and postoperatively (P ​> ​0.05), while it was significantly improved in ECP group at 3-months (P ​= ​0.001), 6-months (P ​= ​0.004), and 12-months (P ​= ​0.010) time points comparing with preoperative BCVA. The surgical success rates in ECP group were also slightly higher than Ahmed group. And the complications after operation showed no marked differences.

Conclusions

The comprehensive treatment of PPV, endoscopic PRP, and ECP surgery for NVG patients after anti-VEGF injection can control IOP effectively and be friendly to patients’ BCVA without obvious serious complications throughout a 12-months follow-up period.