AIM:To observe the clinical efficacy after Ranibizumab intravitreal injection in the treatment of recurrent diabetic macular edema.

METHODS: The study was a retrospective analysis of 30 cases of recurrent diabetic macular edema(39 eyes), including 18 males(23 eyes)and 12 females(16 eyes), aged 54.20±11.50 years. The patients, who were diagnosed to be with recurrent diabetic macular edema, were further treated with intravitreal injection of 0.05mL(0.5mg)ranibizumab. All the treated patients performed best corrected visual acuity, intraocular pressure, slit lamp microscope examination, fundus pre-set lens, fundus fluorescein angiography, and optical coherence tomography(OCT)examinations. The best corrected visual acuity, intraocular pressure and macular central retinal thickness(CRT)were recorded before and after the surgery. The results obtained from the last follow-up visit were used as the index for the evaluation of curative effects.

RESULTS: The follow-up periods ranged 6～12mo with the mean±standard deviation of 8.69±2.26mo. The injection numbers for each eye ranged 1～4 times with the mean±standard deviation of 1.82 ±0.82 times. The visual acuity before the treatment was 0.14±0.09, while significantly increased to 0.33±0.21 after the treatment(t=8.11, P<0.01). The macular OCT examination showed that macular edema was significantly alleviated after the treatment. The CRT was 495.74±147.84μm before the treatment, while significantly decreased to 219.33 ± 62.17μm after the treatment(t=10.68, P<0.01). Further specifically, CRT in 2 patients decreased without improvement of vision after the treatment, and no case of vision decrease after the treatment was observed.

CONCLUSION: Ranibizumab intravitreal injection is effective and safe in the treatment of recurrent diabetic macular edema.