Vascular and non-vascular alterations in retinopathies: towards a change in the therapeutic strategy

MARIA C. SANCHEZ; MAGALI E. RIDANO; PAULA V. SUBIRADA; MARIA C. PAZ; VALERIA E. LORENC; PABLO F. BARCELONA; MARIA VICTORIA VAGLIENTI

Congreso; XII CONGRESO NACIONAL DE INVESTIGACIÓN EN VISIÓN Y OFTALMOLOGÍA; 2018

Neovascular retinopathies are leading causes of irreversible blindness.Although vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitors have been established asthe mainstay of current treatment, clinical management of these diseases is still limited.As retinal impairment involves abnormal neovascularization and neuronal degeneration,we evaluated here the retinal functionality and the behavior of neuro-glial injury markersusing the oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR) model in mice treated or not with anti-VEGFmAb.Postnatal day 17 OIR mouse retinas showed the highest neovascular profile andexhibited neuro-glial alterations as well as retinal functional loss, which persisted untilP26 OIR. Remarkably, although anti-VEGF treatment in P17 OIR improved retinalvascularization, neither non-vascular nor functional alterations were attenuated. Theseresults suggest that, in addition to neovascularization, retinal neurodegeneration shouldalso be considered an important pathogenic component of the disease highlights theimportance of non-vascular alterations in proliferative retinopathies and the need ofseeking new therapeutic agents targeting both neovascular and neurodegenerativeprocesses to treat this multifactorial disease.