Treatment Duration and Side Effect Profile of Long-Term Use of Intravitreal Preservative-Free Triamcinolone Acetonide in Uveitis

Noninfectious uveitis has been treated historically with corticosteroid therapy in varying doses and routes. Triesence, a preservative-free sterile formulation of triamcinolone acetonide, has been used in a wide spectrum of ocular pathologies, but there have been few large studies validating its dosing or detailing long-term side effects in uveitic disease. The primary aim of this study was to describe the relative duration of action and side effects of 2 doses of preservative-free intravitreal triamcinolone acetonide (PF-IVTA) in uveitis. Retrospective, comparative consecutive case series. Charts of all patients receiving PF-IVTA (2 mg or 4 mg) in a defined time period (2012–2014) at the Cole Eye Institute were examined for patient demographics, time to treatment failure (TTF), use of systemic immunosuppression, use of intraocular pressure–lowering therapies, date of cataract surgery and glaucoma filtration surgery, and adverse events. The final data set examined 514 injections in 214 eyes. Mean duration of follow-up was 1.5 years. There was similar demographic distribution between eyes that received 2 mg PF-IVTA only and eyes that received a combination of 4 + 2 mg PF-IVTA. No statistically significant difference in TTF between injection dosages was observed. There was a higher incidence of glaucoma filtering surgery and cataract surgery in eyes that received 4 + 2 mg PF-IVTA as well as a shorter time to glaucoma surgery, when compared to eyes that received 2 mg PF-IVTA alone. This retrospective study supports that 2 mg PF-IVTA displayed noninferior treatment duration to 4 mg PF-IVTA, and may carry a significantly lower side-effect profile of cataract development and glaucoma filtering surgery.