Study identifies risk factors for RPE tear following intravitreal injection

Researchers used optical coherence tomography to examine 21 patients (21 eyes) with vascularized pigment epithelial detachment (PED) who developed retinal pigment epithelial tears after intravitreal bevacizumab injection. A random selection of 78 vascularized PED eyes that did not develop tears after injection served as controls. Multivariate analysis showed elevated pre-injection PED height to be a significant independent risk factor for tear development (odds ratio = 0.995; P<0.001), particularly when it is greater than 400 µm and in the presence of increased subretinal fluid.  Other risk factors were increased volume index (P=0.001), subretinal fluid (P=0.002) and total macular volume (P=0.04).