Summary of Research: Aflibercept 8 mg versus Faricimab Treat‑and‑Extend for Diabetic Macular Edema or Neovascular Age‑Related Macular Degeneration: A Bayesian Fixed‑Effect Network Meta‑analysis of Clinical Trials.

内容摘要

This is a summary of the original research article "Aflibercept 8 mg versus Faricimab Treat‑and‑Extend for Diabetic Macular Edema or Neovascular Age‑Related Macular Degeneration: A Bayesian Fixed‑Effect Network Meta‑analysis of Clinical Trials." Diabetic macular edema (DME) and neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) are eye diseases that can be treated with anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) therapies. As these therapies are given by injections into the eye, reducing the number of injections could reduce the treatment burden on patients and healthcare providers. Aflibercept 8 mg and faricimab treat-and-extend (T&E) may enable longer dosing intervals compared with other available anti-VEGF therapies for patients with DME and nAMD; however, they have not been compared against each other directly in clinical trials. This study used a statistical method called a network meta-analysis (NMA) to compare aflibercept 8 mg and faricimab T&E by synthesizing data from clinical trials, enabling an indirect comparison in the absence of head-to-head studies. Outcomes included the mean number of injections, changes in vision [best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA)] and changes in macula thickness [central subfield thickness (CST)]. CST should reduce if the treatment is working. On the basis of indirect comparison of available clinical trial data, this exploratory study found that there were significantly fewer injections with aflibercept 8 mg treatment compared with faricimab T&E over 2 years, for both patients with DME and nAMD, and there were no significant differences between the two medications for BCVA or CST changes. NMAs are based on indirect comparisons and therefore have limitations, and clinical trials or real-world studies would be required to confirm these conclusions. Please refer to the original article for further details on the methods and limitations of this analysis.