Steroid treatment of retinal vein occlusions

摘要

There's a lot to talk about, and one thing that we might talk about is vein occlusions. Julia, you talked about your implant. How does that compare with intravitreal triamcinolone? Are you using the implant as much, or you going more toward intravitreal injections?Dr Haller: The implant is not currently available. It is in development still. It will be going into phase three trials, hopefully later this year. So, it's really, practically speaking, not available for people. We don't know how it is going to compare. It gives them more sustained delivery, but one question is, do you need a big burst of drug, the way you get with a triamcinolone injection. So whether it will be used in combination or as an alternative, we just don't know. But for now, I use regular old Kenalog, because that is all that is available. But what has happened to me is that my experience in the controlled clinical trials did convince me that steroids really were of benefit. That's my strong prejudice. As my old fellow was leaving in July, I heard him say to the new fellow, Julia is a steroid junkie. I thought, this is pretty bad that I have come to this, but I have really converted a lot to the use of steroids for different types of diseases complicated by macular edema. I don't know if you feel the same way.