Hard exudates in diabetic macular edema after intravitreal anti-VEGF therapy: a post-hoc analysis of the DRCR protocol T trial.

ABSTRACT:

Aim

To quantitatively analyze change in the extent of hard exudates (HEs) following anti-VEGF therapy for diabetic macular edema (DME) and its relationships with visual outcomes.

Methods

This post-hoc analysis of DRCR Protocol T included 260 eyes of 260 patients. The volume of HEs was measured by automatically quantifying hyper-reflective foci (HRF) on structural optical coherence tomography (OCT) volumes using a supervised convolutional neural network architecture, "DUCK-Net". HEs were quantified within the entire ETDRS grid as well as within the central subfield (CSF), inner ring (IR), and outer ring (OR) at baseline, 4, 12, 24, and 52 weeks (w) after treatment. The extent of HEs at baseline and over time was then correlated with visual acuity (VA) and retinal thickness ou

SUBMITTER: Pak K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12923397 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature