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Endophthalmitis following same-day bilateral anti-VEGF injections: a systematic review

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Abstract

Purpose

To review the risk of endophthalmitis in same-day bilateral anti-VEGF injections.

Methods

We searched 12 literature databases for studies on the risk of endophthalmitis after same-day bilateral intravitreal anti-VEGF injections. Data extraction was made independently by two authors and discussed afterward until reaching consensus.

Results

Seventeen studies were included with a total of 138,478 intravitreal anti-VEGF injections (69,239 bilateral injections sessions) given in at least 7579 patients. In total, 33 cases of endophthalmitis had occurred, and no cases were bilateral. The incidence of endophthalmitis ranged from 0 to 0.53% per intravitreal injection across studies.

Conclusions

We suggest that clinicians can consider same-day treatment of both eyes of patients in need of bilateral intravitreal anti-VEGF injection therapy, but larger studies are needed to quantify the exact risk of endophthalmitis.

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Funding

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ophthalmology, Rigshospitalet Glostrup, Valdemar Hansens Vej 1-23, 2600, Glostrup, Denmark

    Jakob Bjerager, Javad Hajari, Oliver Niels Klefter, Yousif Subhi & Miklos Schneider

  2. Department of Clinical Research, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

    Yousif Subhi

  3. Department of Ophthalmology, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

    Miklos Schneider

  4. Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Oliver Niels Klefter

Authors
  1. Jakob Bjerager
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  2. Javad Hajari
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by JB, YS, ONK, and MS. The first draft of the manuscript was written by JB and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Miklos Schneider.

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Conflict of interest

Author M.S. has received investigator fees from Allergan, Bayer, Novartis, and Roche and has served as an advisory board member for Novartis and Roche and acted as consultant for AbbVie, not related to this work. Author Y.S. declares to have received speakers fee from Bayer and Roche, not related to this work. Other authors declare that no potential conflicts of interests exist in relation to this work.

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Bjerager, J., Hajari, J., Klefter, O.N. et al. Endophthalmitis following same-day bilateral anti-VEGF injections: a systematic review. Int Ophthalmol 44, 37 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10792-024-02983-4

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