Seeing Floaters or Bubble-Like Spots After Receiving Avastin® Eye Injection?

Why A Negligent Pharmacy Who Carelessly Packaged Avastin® In Silicone Coated Syringes May Be To Blame...

From the desk of:
Andy Bederman, Managing Attorney

To Avastin® Eye Injection Patients:

If you (or someone you know) has received Avastin® eye injections for an eye condition such as macular degeneration or diabetic eye disease, then this may be one of the most important messages you will read...

Here is why...

Ophthalmologists often use Avastin® in eye injections to treat various eye conditions, including...

• Macular degeneration
• Diabetic eye diseases (such as macular edema and diabetic retinopathy)
• Macular dystrophy
• Retinal vein occlusion
• ...And other degenerative eye conditions

However, it has come to the medical community’s attention that many patients who receive Avastin® eye injections are experiencing persistent “floaters” or bubble-like spots in their vision as a result.

Please continue reading as these new developments may have a significant impact on you...

Avastin® Has NEVER Been Approved For Use In Eyes – And Serious Mistakes Were Made

While Avastin® has shown to be effective for the treatment of many degenerative eye conditions, it has NOT been F.D.A. approved for use in eyes.

Avastin® was developed as a cancer drug! It has NEVER been approved for treatment of eye-related conditions.

While ophthalmologists have successfully experimented with Avastin® for eye conditions, its use in eye injections is strictly considered “off-label”, and thus a “not approved” indication for the drug.

Despite not being approved for use in eyes, it’s “off-label” use by ophthalmologists have spurred a mad rush by compounding pharmacies to package and sell Avastin® in syringes for use in eye injections.

But in the mad rush, the pharmacies used the wrong type of syringe...

It’s Not the Avastin® Itself – But Rather The Silicone Coated Syringe That’s Used to Inject It

Remember, Avastin® was developed and approved for use as a cancer drug – not as a drug to be injected into eyes.

But when ophthalmologists began asking pharmacies for it (for off-label use), the pharmacies often packaged Avastin® in syringes that were NOT appropriate for use in eye injections.

These syringes that pharmacies filled with Avastin® (which is a liquid) had needles that were often coated in silicone oil.

This silicone oil coating is common with syringes that are used for diabetes (ie. insulin shots), but should have NEVER been used with a needle meant for injection into an eye.

The Silicone On The Syringe Inadvertently Mixed With the Avastin® Liquid – And Thus Silicone Particles Were Unknowingly Injected Into The Patient’s Eyes

You see, the compounding pharmacies that would package Avastin® in syringes for off-label eye injections were careless in their use of silicone-coated needles.

The syringes were typically frozen for shipment, and later thawed at the ophthalmologist’s office. When you freeze a silicone oil-coated syringe and thaw it, silicone particles will then detach and mix with whatever liquid is in the syringe.

With non-eye related injections (like diabetic insulin delivery), this isn’t a big deal. The body can deal with some silicone particles being injected into the bloodstream without much problem.

But when those silicone particles are injected into the eye, they have NO WHERE to go, and no way to easily be removed.

Even worse, the silicone particles are injected directly into the patient’s line of sight – which is why so many Avastin® eye injection patients are seeing “floaters” and bubble-like spots in their vision.

Floaters and "Bubble-Like" Spots Because of Silicone Coated Syringes Used in Avastin® Injections

The symptoms and side effects of having silicone particles inadvertently injected into your eyes are...

• Floaters, or bubble-like spots in field of vision

Unfortunately for the victims of this carelessness by the compounding pharmacies, these floaters or bubble-like spots are often either permanent or extremely complex or expensive to medically treat.

In the mad dash to re-package Avastin® for eye-related off-label use, these compounding pharmacies have caused a significant amount of harm to many people.

Compounding Pharmacies May Have Been Negligent In Their Packaging of Avastin® For Eye Injections – Hurting Many Innocent People

As a result of specific compounding pharmacies negligently re-packaging Avastin® for off-label use in dangerous silicone oil-coated syringes, you or your loved one likely suffered significant vision complications, emotional and physical stress, as well as unintended financial burdens – not to mention a significant loss in quality of life.

As a victim of a negligent compounding pharmacy that may have failed to safely package Avastin® for eye injections, you may be entitled to what are called "money damages", which is a legal term for financial compensation awarded from individual lawsuits, settlements or class action lawsuits.

All potential Avastin® eye injection lawsuits are currently being investigated on the grounds that specific compounding pharmacies...

• failed to properly and safely package Avastin® for use in eye injections
• negligently used silicone coated syringes not purposed or approved for eye injections