The following transcript has been edited for clarity.
Hi, I'm Carl Danzig, MD, from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Recently at ASRS in Montreal, I had the distinct honor of presenting the real-world efficacy and safety of faricimab (Vabysmo; Genentech) in neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD), the TRUCKEE study, 4.5 year results.
The TRUCKEE study was a study designed by physicians. There was no industry sponsorship here. It’s a real-world study of over 3,600 eyes and over 2,900 patients and actually was about 22,000 injections. And what faricimab did, it continued to demonstrate rapid improvement in all anatomic parameters in both treatment-naïve and previously treated populations. So all of these patients were put into the TRUCKEE study, usually those hard-to-treat patients, but also treatment naïve. And those anatomic parameters that we’re talking about—central subfield thickness (CST), pigment epithelial detachment (PED), subretinal fluid, intraretinal fluid—in both categories of previously treated and treatment naïve, faricimab demonstrated continued improvement. And the benefit of faricimab increased with continuous treatments, with improvements in anatomy and extension of treatment intervals the more you treated.
Patients switched to faricimab from aflibercept 2 mg (Eylea; Regeneron) had interval extension nearly 2 weeks after 9 faricimab injections. The treatment-naïve patients went all the way out to about 10 weeks with faricimab.
Faricimab also demonstrated a low rate of intraocular inflammation (IOI) and endophthalmitis. There was 1 report of bilateral nonocclusive vasculitis and all events resolved and vision returned to baseline in all cases.
Of note, when I look at the TRUCKEE data and I look at my own personal experience, I see that I have evolved. The TRUCKEE study started when faricimab was newly approved in early 2022. Now those treatment naïve patients, you say, “Oh, only 10-week interval.” Well, in the beginning, a lot of the doctors were not as comfortable extending patients at 4-week intervals like we saw in the clinical trial. Now in my clinic, I find myself actually treating treatment-naïve patients with faricimab and extending them out at 4-week intervals. So we’re evolving as we continue to be more and more comfortable with faricimab and the TRUCKEE study helps reinforce that.
Thank you. RP