Dexamethasone Implants in Patients with Naive Diabetic Macular Edema

patient population, which could have influenced the investigation in the context of patient responses as well as of outcome measures. These findings suggest that some baseline characteristics of patients could affect the results obtained. Aknin et al. [1] enrolled 48% of treatment-naive patients, and 76% were naive to any previous antivascular endothelial growth factor injections. Likewise, Escobar-Barranco et al. [6] reported values significantly better in the naive group, while central retinal thickness decreased significantly and similarly in both groups (naive and non-naive patients). Thus, these data support the notion that treatment-naive patients present better reDear Editor We have read the comments of Aknin et al. [1] on our article entitled ‘Efficacy and safety of intravitreal dexamethasone implant in patients with diabetic macular edema’ [2] with great interest. Aknin et al. [1] present a long-term follow-up study of patients with diabetic macular edema (DME) treated with Ozurdex ® . The authors report a significant improvement in the best corrected visual acuity, with a mean gain of at least 13 letters during the follow-up period and similar positive results on central retinal thickness. These results are better than those reported in our study [2] and many previous studies [3–5] . We think that these differences could be due to the baseline characteristics of the Received: March 3, 2016 Accepted: April 14, 2016 Published online: May 14, 2016