Materials and methods: One hundred seventy six eyes of 176 treatment-naive patients with macular edema secondary to Diabetes Mellitus were enrolled in this study. The patients in the study were divided into the following four groups according to their ages: group 1 (40-50 years), group 2 (51-60 years), group 3 (61-70 years), and group 4 (>70 years). Three consecutive injections at intervals of 1 month were applied to all diabetic patients. The effi cacy of the ranibizumab treatment on macular edema according to age groups was assessed by optical coherence tomography (OCT) by comparing the central foveal thickness (CFT) and mean visual acuity (VA) changes after initial and three loading dose injections.

Results: After three consecutive ranibizumab injection, the mean reduction of CFT in groups 1, 2, 3, and 4 were -255.1±123.4, -205.8±99.8, -194.6±119.1, and -191.8±105.7?m, and mean improvement of VA in groups 1, 2, 3, and 4 were 6.1±0.9, 4.9±0.7, 4.2±0.2, 3.8±0.3 letters respectively. The improvement of VA and reduction of CFT was signifi cantly different in each group (p<0.001 in all groups, Paired-samples t-test). The changes of CFT and VA was signifi cantly different between age groups (p:0.025 and p:0.009 respectively, Analysis of Covariance, ANCOVA). Additionally, ages of patients were correlated with the mean reduction of CFT and mean improvement of VA for the whole study group (r:-0.150, p:0.047 for CFT, r:-0.756, p<0.001 for VA, Pearson correlation).

Conclusion: In this study, it was observed that the effi cacy of ranibizumab treatment was found to be more effective in younger patients in treatment-naive diabetic macular edema patients. Keywords : Age, Central Foveal Thickness, Diabetic Macular Edema, Lucentis, Ranibizumab