PURPOSE: To evaluate the effect of a single dose of intravitreous injection of ketorolac tromethamine (500 µg/0.1 ml) in patients with diabetic macular edema refractory to retinal photocoagulation. METHODS: Prospective study. Twenty patients with bilateral diabetic macular edema and ETDRS best-corrected visual acuity between 20/50 and 20/200 were selected. Patients who had other ocular diseases or previous eye surgery were excluded. Preservative-free ketorolac tromethamine was injected intravitreally (500 µg in 0.1 ml) in 20 eyes; fellow eyes served as controls. Ophthalmic examinations included ETDRS best-corrected visual acuity, measurement of intraocular pressure and optical coherence tomography. The examinations were performed preoperatively, 1 week and 1 month postoperatively. RESULTS: A statistically significant increase in visual acuity over time in the treated eye compared with the fellow eye was noted (p=0.039). There were no statistically significant differences in the assessment of intraocular pressure (p=0.99), foveal thickness (p=0.86) and macular volume (p=0.23) during the period. CONCLUSION: Patients with diabetic macular edema refractory to photocoagulation showed improvement in visual acuity over a one month period with a statistically significant difference when compared with the control eye. There were no statistically significant differences in intraocular pressure, foveolar thickness and macular volume between the treated and control eyes.
Diabetic retinopathy; Injections; Vitreous body; Intraocular pressure; Macular edema; Retina; Ketorolac tromethanine; Laser coagulation; Visual acuity
