Effect of Avastin on Intraocular Pressure Before and After Intravitreal Injections

Introduction: 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. methods: 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 <0.05. results: 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<0.01). the mean iop changes before and after infusion in the case and control eyes did not differ significantly (p=0.30). conclusions: 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.