Problems and challenges of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor therapy for ocular neovescularization diseases

Anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapy is a major strategy for treating ocular neovascular diseases nowadays.It has revolutionarily improved the vision of many patients since its emergence.However, VEGF is essentially a protective growth factor that is compensatorily produced by human body.In the anti-VEGF treatment of the diseases, the physiological effects of VEGF are also inhibited, which may result in some related problems, such as retinal atrophy, retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) tears, systemic adverse effects, and so on.Retinal atrophy has become one of the major causes of visual loss in the late stage of the treatment.The specific mechanism underlying them is not completely known, we should pay enough attention to them.How to improve the anti-VEGF treatment strategy in order to reduce the incidence of these problems will be a great challenge. Key words: Vascular endothelial growth factor; Neovascularization; Ranibizumab; Bevacizumab; Age-related macular degeneration, neovascular; Adverse effects