Abstract
Purpose
To evaluate the characteristics of macular retinal and subfoveal choroidal changes in patients already on taxane-based therapy by the help of spectral domain optical coherence tomograpy (SD-OCT) and determine the incidence of taxane- related cystoid macular edema (CME).
Materials and methods
In this cross-sectional case-control study, 202 patients who received taxane-based therapy due to treatment of various cancer and age and sex-matched 200 healthy control subjects were examined. Only patients who received at least 4 cycles of taxane-based therapy were taken into consideration for the taxane group. Taxane-based therapy was further divided into two subgroups; paclitaxel group (149 patients) and docetaxel group (53 patients). Central macular thickness (CMT) and central subfoveal choroidal thickness (CCT) were measured just once during their ongoing chemotherapy using SD-OCT and enhanced-depth imaging (EDI) OCT by Heidelberg OCT by a single examiner.
Results
Patients received a median of 7 cycles (range, 4–26) of paclitaxel or docetaxel and received a total cumulative dose of 852.81 ± 368.82 mg/m2 (range, 300–2310 mg/m2). Though the mean CMT was significantly thicker in the taxane group (224.9 ± 28.4 µm) than the healthy control group (215.9 ± 19.7 µm), there was no statistically significant difference between the paclitaxel (225.3 ± 28.2 µm) and docetaxel (224.2 ± 20.1 µm) groups. On the other hand, the CCT was not statistically significant different between the taxane versus control eyes and paclitaxel versus docetaxel patients. Taxane-related CME was detected only in one patient on paclitaxel. Overall, incidence of taxane-related maculopathy was 0.5% (1/202) of all patients in the taxane group.
Conclusion
In our group of taxane receiving patients, incidence of taxane-related CME was 0.5%. In light of our study, we believe that clinicians should be alert on the occurence of taxane-related CME and carefully scrutinize the patients whenever any suspicion is arisen.
Acknowledgements
The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).