Marc Biarnés presents the main benefits of antiangiogenics at Spain’s most important optometrists’ congress

Marc Biarnés, OD MPH PhD, the clinical epidemiologist at the Institut de la Màcula, is providing training at the OPTOM Congress on the discovery and application of antiangiogenic medicines, now the most widely used in treating many macular diseases. OPTOM is Spain’s benchmark meeting in the field of optometry and Dr. Biarnés forms part of its scientific committee.

Under the title of "10 things we have learned from antiangiogenics", Dr. Biarnés is educating specialists from all around the world in the medical community’s key knowledge, the result of the experience accumulated over nearly 15 years of the clinical use of these drugs. Dr. Biarnes will explain their indications, their effectiveness, the effects they produce, the importance of personalised treatment, the start of treatment and its frequency, ocular and systemic safety, the comparison between intravitreal anti-VEGF injections and economic assessment.

These medicines have proved to be highly beneficial because they reduce VEGF (vascular endothelium growth factor) concentration. The presence of this protein is necessary for the eye to work properly. However, at very high levels it can cause the proliferation of new blood vessels and therefore an increase in vascular permeability, which can lead to retinal choroidal neovascularisation and exudation of retinal vessels.

However, these medicines have been shown to possess certain limitations, above all, in terms of durability and their long-term effectiveness. For this reason, new channels of research have been implemented and these should enable the shortcomings to be overcome.