Early Retinal and Choroidal Coat Thickness Changes after Intravitreal Dexamethasone Implant Injection for Diabetic Macular Edema

Intravitreal steroid injection is one of the treatment options for diabetic macular edema. Dexamethasone implant is the most novel form of intravitreal steroid therapy. Improvement in macular thickness is a well-known effect of Dexamethasone implant however, subfoveal choroidal coat thickness changes require investigation. To evaluate the early central macular thickness and subfoveal choroidal thickness alterations after single-dose dexamethasone implant injection in diabetic macular edema. Cross-sectional study. We identified 29 patients with diabetic macular edema (29 eyes) who underwent optical coherence tomography and fundus fluorescein angiography. All patients received a single-dose intravitreal Dexamethasone implant and were followed up for central macular thickness and subfoveal choroidal thickness alterations for 1 hour, 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months post-injection. The preoperative mean central macular thickness and subfoveal choroidal thickness measurements were 592.3±122.3 (412–879) μm and 264.8±53.7 (165–397) μm, respectively. Central macular thickness measurements decreased significantly in the first hour (p