Safety and effectiveness of intravitreal injection of dexamethasone for macular edema secondary to retinal vein occlusion: a meta-analysis

Abstract Background: This meta-analysis aimed to investigate the efficacy and safety of intravitreal injection of dexamethasone (DEX) in treating macular edema secondary to retinal vein occlusion. Method: PubMed, Embase-clinical key, clinicaltrials.gov, Web of Science, and SinoMed were searched to compare the application of DEX implant in patients with retinal vein occlusion secondary macular edema (RVO-ME). The central retinal thickness, best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), postoperative intraocular pressure, and postoperative cataract were extracted. RevMan 5.3 was used to analyze and evaluate the data. Results: This study was based on six randomized trials. A total of 393 eyes were studied. DEX implant could effectively reduce macular edema caused by retinal vein occlusion. After 6 months, the drug could significantly improve the patients’ BCVA [95% confidence interval (CI), 9.669–21.649, P = 21.649]. At the same time, it also could significantly reduce the patients’ central retinal thickness (95% CI: 274.965–142.236, P = 0.0000). DEX implant could increase the intraocular pressure in some patients and greatly increase the risk of cataracts. Conclusions: DEX implant can effectively improve the BCVA of patients with RVO-ME, reduce the central thickness of the retina, and reduce the number of injections for a relatively long time. Therefore, intravitreal injection of DEX can be used as an effective method for treating RVO-ME.