Prospective multicenter study of visual outcomes following three different treatments for macular edema associated with branch retinal vein occlusion: a study by the Japanese BRVO study group.
To evaluate the visual outcomes of three different treatments for macular edema associated with a branch retinal vein occlusion.A 1-year, non-randomized study was conducted at 21 ophthalmological institutes in Japan. All of the patients received one of three treatments: medication per-oral (PO), photocoagulation (PC) or pars plana vitrectomy (PPV). Retinal hemorrhage that was lower than that shown in reference photographs was considered an inclusion criteria.Ninety-eight patients were studied. Twenty-six (26.5%) patients were in the PO, 37 (37.8%) in the PC and 35 (35.7%) in the PPV group. The mean best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) improved significantly after 1 year in all groups (P < 0.001). There was no significant difference among those groups in the degree of the BCVA improvement. However, the BCVA in the PPV group improved significantly at 6 months, significantly earlier than in the other two groups. The BCVA at entry in the PPV group was significantly worst among patients whose eyes had a BCVA of ≥ 0.7 at 1 year (P < 0.05).PPV had a slight advantage over PC and PO, although the improvement to the BCVA did not differ significantly following any of the three treatments.
