A systematic review of clinical application of ranibizumab in wet age-related macular degeneration

Age-related macular degeneration(AMD)causes severe vision loss due to the development of choroidal neovascularization(CNV).The critical role of VEGF in the pathogenesis of CNV is well understood and known.Ranibizumab is a fragment of a humanized monoelonal antibody.It plays an inhibitory role on CNV and reduces vascular permeability by binding to VEGF.Some clinical trials and literature have proved the clinical efficacy of ranibizumab via intravitreal injection for wet AMD.But the systematized administration is vital important.Some high-quality researches showed that the optimal timing for ranibizumab treating wet AMD is the first 3 months.It is recommended that ranibizumab is intravitreally injected monthly in the initiation for least 3 months.Sequent managing regimen should be made depended on the image of optical coherence topography and fundus fluorescine angiography and visual acuity change.Individuated strategy or combined method with PDT are beneficial to the active lesion in the consecutive treatment of ranibizumab for CNV and may be a good choice in order to decrease the injection times.This article systematically searched and summarized the relative literature and offered the high-quality evidences for the clinical evaluation of ranibizumab treating wet AMD. Key words: Age-related macular degeneration ;  Choroidal neovascularization ;  Ranibizumab ;  Intravitrealinjection;  Evidence-based medicine;  System review