NSAID Phase II for Non-central Involved Diabetic Macular Edema (DME)

There is strong evidence to indicate that prevention of non-central involved DME from progression into the central subfield of the macula is a good anatomic surrogate for preventing visual acuity loss. Furthermore, the prevalence of macular edema is estimated to be high among patients with diabetes, and it is likely that approximately 25% of non-central involved cases of DME extend into the central subfield of the macula within one year. Thus, if a relatively safe and economical treatment could be identified that reduced the progression of non-central involved edema to central-involved edema by at least 50%, this treatment could have a major public health impact. There is also evidence that inflammation has a role in DME, and that a topical NSAID might have an effect on retinal edema. Topical NSAIDs are in current widespread clinical use and appear to be well tolerated and safe when administered chronically, making them a potentially attractive alternative treatment for DME in patients who would like to delay or avoid laser photocoagulation or intravitreal injections (for example, patients who are willing to use daily eye drops to avoid ocular procedures or patients for whom access to experienced retinal specialists to apply laser photocoagulation or other treatments is limited). This phase II trial may provide proof of concept evidence that topical NSAID treatment can have a beneficial effect on DME and possibly prevent increases in retinal volume or progression of non central-involved DME into the central subfield of the macula. Furthermore, it could determine the correlation between OCT and fundus photographic documentation of progression of DME into the central subfield in this clinical trial setting. Since effective treatments, including laser photocoagulation and intravitreal injections, already exist for DME treatment, topical NSAIDs would have to demonstrate a substantial effect on DME progression in order to be of sufficient clinical interest for further investigation. If a beneficial effect is apparent in this trial, which utilizes a relatively small sample size and short follow-up period, results from this phase II study might be utilized in planning future phase III trials. These future phase III trials could definitively answer whether or not NSAIDs are an efficacious novel therapeutic approach to the treatment of DME or preventing the progression of DME from extending into the central subfield of the macula.