Wider use of ranibizumab would cut incidence of blindness in diabetic macular oedema

Wider use of ranibizumab could help prevent sight loss in thousands of US adults with diabetic macular oedema. In the image, retina damage from diabetes — Diabetic macular oedema is a leading cause of vision loss in working-age adults in the United States

Ranibizumab is a monoclonal antibody fragment used to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic macular oedema (DMO) — a leading cause of vision loss in working-age adults in the United States.

Researchers developed a population-based model to investigate whether wider use of ranibizumab could help prevent sight loss in thousands of adults with diabetic eye disease, and publish their findings in Ophthalmology
^[1].

Treatment with ranibizumab 0.3mg at 4-week intervals would reduce the incidence of vision impairment (VI) by 45% and legal blindness by 75%, equivalent to nearly 6,500 cases — based on the approximately 37,274 Hispanic and non-Hispanic white adults with DMO in the United States eligible for ranibizumab treatment.

The study was supported by Genentech, developer of ranibizumab.