ABSTRACT.Purpose: To evaluate and compare the 12-month outcomes of two different initial dosing regimens of intravitreal ranibizumab for myopic choroidal neovascularization (CNV). Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 46 consecutive, treatment-naive eyes which received intravitreal ranibizumab for subfoveal and juxtafoveal CNV secondary to pathologic myopia with a follow-up of 12 months. Two groups were created according to different initial dosing regimens: group 1 included 25 eyes treated by a single intravitreal injection; group 2 included 21 eyes treated by three consecutive monthly injections. Additional injections were performed if needed. Patients' demographic data, best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), recurrence of CNV and total number of treatments were recorded and evaluated. Results: There was no significant difference between two groups among baseline demographic data. At 12 months, the mean logMAR BCVA improved from 0.58 to 0.23 in group 1 and from 0.55 to 0.22 in group 2 (both p < 0.001; Wilcoxon signedrank test). The mean logMAR BCVA at 12 months did not differ significantly. The average number of injections was 2.32 (SD 1.22) in group 1 and 3.57 (SD 1.12) in group 2 (p = 0.001; two-tailed t-test). During the follow-up, 17 of 25 eyes in group 1 and 5 of 21 eyes in group 2 received additional injections (p = 0.004). Conclusions: Similar visual improvement was achieved in both groups. Although the eyes with a loading dose of 3 monthly injections required a higher number of total injections over 1 year, there was a much lower rate of retreatment needed.

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Waldmann (Q J Econ 107:1283-1302 established long ago that being improvements in health, medical personnel are the valued input factor of the health production function. Previous research, however, has generally ignored the importance of medical personnel in the health production function and has almost exclusively focused on health expenditure. Thus, the motivation behind this study is to identify the relationship between two health indicators, namely medical personnel, i.e., registered nurses and physicians, and average life expectancy in Taiwan. From the empirical results, we find that there is a long-term equilibrium relationship between the two variables and that medical personnel play a crucial role in the medical care system. Finally, the forecast error variance in life expectancy is mainly explained by itself. Moreover, medical personnel have a positive initial impact on life expectancy, and similar innovations are discovered vice versa in the impulse response functions. Some policy implications can be obtained via our empirical results.

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