Second Line Therapy to Treat Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) for Patients Not Responding Well to Lucentis Therapy by Itself

Vitreous -Retina- Macula Consultants of New York

Status and phase

Withdrawn

Phase 2

Conditions

Age Related Macular Degeneration

Treatments

Drug: Lucentis

Drug: Dexamethasone

Drug: Visudyne

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Industry

Identifiers

NCT00457678

TAPER

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that Visudyne-Lucentis-dexamethasone (V-L-D) triple therapy will give similar efficacy and safety results as Lucentis monotherapy.

Full description

Study Design:

Patients who have received 2-6 previous treatments with Lucentis monotherapy and who have exudative activity associated with the choroidal neovascularization (CNV) lesion, as confirmed by fluorescein angiography (FA) or optical coherence tomography (OCT), will be eligible. Patients will be randomly assigned at 4-8 weeks after the previous Lucentis treatment to either

continuation of Lucentis monotherapy
triple therapy with half fluence Visudyne (300 mW/cm2 for 83 seconds) followed within 2 hours by intravitreal Lucentis 0.5 mg (first injection) and then dexamethasone 0.5 mg (second injection) (V-L-D).

Both groups will receive treatment at baseline and then as needed (PRN), according to retreatment criteria, with monthly assessments thereafter for 12 months. In the triple therapy group, patients may only be retreated with the V-L-D combination at intervals of no less than 3 months; if retreatment is needed 1 or 2 months after a previous V-L-D treatment, the patient will receive a Lucentis injection at that visit; however, if retreatment is needed and the previous V-L-D treatment was at least 3 months prior, then V-L-D treatment is mandatory. OCT, visual acuity (VA) testing, and possibly FA will be conducted at each assessment visit to define the need for retreatment.

Sex

All

Ages

50+ years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Main Inclusion Criteria:

Patients with subfoveal CNV due to AMD who, after 2-6 previous treatments with Lucentis monotherapy, continue to have exudative activity associated with the CNV lesion 4-8 weeks after the last treatment. Exudative activity is defined as one or more of:
- CNV leakage confirmed by FA
- New hemorrhage associated with the CNV lesion
- Subretinal fluid or cystoid macular edema by OCT showing retinal thickness ≥ 230 μm
All lesion composition types with a lesion greatest linear dimension (GLD) ≤ 5400 microns (approximately ≤ 9 disc areas [DA])
Best corrected ETDRS VA score of 25-73 letters (approximate Snellen equivalent of 20/40-20/320)

Main Exclusion Criteria: