As we continue to await the highly anticipated results of the Comparison of Anti-VEGF Treatments Trial (CATT), which is comparing ranibizumab (Lucentis, Genentech) with bevacizumab (Avastin, Genentech) in regard to safety and efficacy for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), we have many other interesting developments occurring on the AMD front.

Earlier this year, 1-year results from the parallel phase 3 multicenter studies evaluating VEGF trap (VEGF Trap-eye, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals) were presented. The data showed that not only is VEGF trap noninferior to ranibizumab, but that VEGF trap delivers results as good as those achieved with ranibizumab with less frequent dosing. These results provide further proof of principle that our ongoing research efforts toward treating AMD continue to set the bar higher and that we must persist in raising the bar for ourselves, both in the gains that we can achieve for our patients with medical therapy and in lowering the burden of treatment.

One might ask, Do these data make the ranibizumab-bevacizumab debate a moot point? In my opinion, they do not. Rather, what we will learn from CATT has the potential to affect the way that we look at our medical therapies in the future, the way that we conduct our studies, and the way we view the socioeconomic impact of science.

In everyday practice, as these new developments are awaited, clinicians continue to refine their treatment regimens with standard-of-care ranibizumab, and emerging data from our colleagues help us to reduce the frequency of injections with more individualized regimens. Additionally, we have begun to better understand the importance of prudent administration of intravitreal anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti- VEGF) injections; we have made progress in our efforts to identify who will and who will not respond to this mode of treatment.

There are many aspects of wet and dry AMD that we still do not understand, however, and so we must continue to dig deep to excavate the answers that will help us to reach our unmet goals. As Sir Francis Bacon said, “... neither is it possible to discover the more remote and deeper parts of any science, if you stand but upon the level of the same science, and ascend not to a higher science.”1

  1. Montagu B, ed. The Works of Francis Bacon. London: William Pickering; 1852.