Avastin/Lucentis Update 31: Problems with Pharmacy Compounding of Avastin?

A disturbing report from the 2009 AAO Meeting, as described on the OSN Supersite. Dr. Malik Kahook, speaking at the joint meeting, said that he had seen 16 cases of IOP spikes following injection of Avastin in his clinic, and has seen reports of at least 74 additional cases in five states. He went on to say that investigation was ongoing with both Lucentis and Avastin, but that "cases are overwhelmingly in the Avastin corner."

"By no means am I saying that Avastin is doing something to the trabecular meshwork or the eye cells, [but] certain compounding techniques are affecting the components that you're getting in the syringe, whether it's aggregation of proteins, formation of dimers and trimers, or other components that could be as large as 20 μm."

Inflammation and toxicity related to delivery of Avastin have been suggested as potentially causing IOP spikes. However, microflow imaging showed significant differences in total particle number in samples of Avastin drawn directly from a multidose vial, from the vehicle and from a dose supplied by a compounding pharmacy, Dr. Kahook said. The compounding pharmacy was selected because it [had] supplied doses to a Utah clinic that saw 42 post-injection IOP spikes.

This bears further watching.