{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,10]],"date-time":"2025-10-10T01:02:12Z","timestamp":1760058132420,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":46,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,12]],"date-time":"2025-03-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1741737600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Medicina"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Background and Objectives: To investigate anatomical and functional outcomes in different morphological subtypes of diabetic macular edema (DME) treated with an intravitreal dexamethasone implant (Ozurdex) over 6 months follow-up. Materials and Methods: A retrospective, comparative study on patients with DME who received an intravitreal dexamethasone implant. Best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), central subfoveal thickness (CST) and maximum CST on optical coherence tomography (OCT) were measured. The recruits were divided into three groups based on the morphological patterns of DME: serous retinal detachment (SRD), cystic macular edema (CME) and diffuse retinal thickening (DRT). The presence or absence of previous treatment were considered as being previously treated with anti-VEGF (PT) vs. na\u00efve eyes (TN). All subjects received a single injection of the dexamethasone implant. The primary outcomes included changes in BCVA, CST and CSTMax at 2-, 4- and 6-months of follow-up. Results: CST was significantly reduced following one dexamethasone injection in the whole cohort from a total mean value of 513.3 \u03bcm to 368.2 \u03bcm at 2 months, 447.2 \u03bcm at 4 months and 471.5 \u03bcm at 6 months. The change in CST was significantly greater in SRD as opposed to the DRT and CME group at all time points. Overall, BCVA improved from 0.82 at baseline to 0.75 and 0.76 LogMAR at 2 and 4 months, respectively, whilst showing an overall deterioration to 0.84 at 6 months. The CME group showed the best BCVA at 6 months. Concerning treatment status (TN vs. PT), there was no significant difference in CST at 2 and 4 months, while CST was reduced at 6 months for the PT group (p = 0.023). Similarly, BCVA was significantly better in the PT group at 6 months (p = 0.017). Conclusions: The dexamethasone implant was effective in reducing DME and providing short-term BCVA improvement. The presence of SRD was associated with more favorable anatomical results, while CME was associated with better visual acuity. Dexamethasone provided superior results in previously treated patients.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/medicina61030488","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,12]],"date-time":"2025-03-12T07:31:42Z","timestamp":1741764702000},"page":"488","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Efficacy of Intravitreal Dexamethasone Implant (Ozurdex\u00ae) in Na\u00efve and Refractory Patients with Different Morphological Subtypes of Diabetic Macular Edema"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"61","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0570-6438","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Panagiotis","family":"Stavrakas","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine, University of Patras, 26504 Patras, Greece"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7959-4854","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Evita Evangelia","family":"Christou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Ophthalmica Eye Institute, 54622 Thessaloniki, Greece"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Vasileios","family":"Nasikas","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Ophthalmica Eye Institute, 54622 Thessaloniki, Greece"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Chrysoula","family":"Koutsiouki","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Ophthalmica Eye Institute, 54622 Thessaloniki, Greece"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Athanasios","family":"Vakalis","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Ophthalmica Eye Institute, 54622 Thessaloniki, Greece"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Solon","family":"Asteriadis","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Ophthalmica Eye Institute, 54622 Thessaloniki, Greece"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8399-7456","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Georgios D.","family":"Panos","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"First Department of Ophthalmology, AHEPA University Hospital, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54636 Thessaloniki, Greece"},{"name":"Division of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2UH, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Paris","family":"Tranos","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Ophthalmica Eye Institute, 54622 Thessaloniki, Greece"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,12]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"137","DOI":"10.1016\/j.diabres.2013.11.002","article-title":"Global estimates of diabetes prevalence for 2013 and projections for 2035","volume":"103","author":"Guariguata","year":"2014","journal-title":"Diabetes Res. 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