Insights and Highlights from the FRB! Retinal Vein Occlusion Module — ANZSRS 2026

A/Prof Adrian Hunt presented at the 2026 mid-year meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Retinal Specialists (ANZSRS), held on 30–31 May 2026 at The Fullerton Hotel, Sydney. ANZSRS is the retinal subspecialty group of RANZCO, and its annual meeting brings together medical and surgical retinal specialists from across Australia and New Zealand.

On Saturday 30 May, A/Prof Hunt joined Professor Mark Gillies and Dr Yohei Hashimoto for the Fight Retinal Blindness! registry — highlights and insights session. He presented a selection of papers from the retinal vein occlusion (RVO) module. The talk drew on real-world data from the Fight Retinal Blindness! (FRB!) registry at the Save Sight Institute, University of Sydney — a clinical database that tracks how anti-VEGF and other treatments for RVO, AMD and DR actually perform in routine practice, over years rather than the months of a clinical trial.

Professor Gillies, Associate Professor Hunt and Doctor Hashimoto after presenting their Fight Retinal Blindness! insights and highlights session — ANZSRS 2026, The Fullerton Hotel, Sydney.

The presentation walked through a decade of FRB! findings in RVO: how aflibercept and ranibizumab compare for branch and central disease, the distinct behaviour of hemiretinal vein occlusion, long-term and three-year outcomes, the effect of cataract surgery in eyes under treatment, how widely treatment frequency varies between practitioners, and — most recently — which eyes can successfully pause injection therapy.

Publications discussed in this talk

Open-access papers link to their full text; the remainder link to the publisher (DOI), where the abstract is freely available.

1. Hunt AR, Hashimoto Y, O’Toole L, et al. Suspending vascular endothelial growth factor inhibitors in eyes with retinal vein occlusion. British Journal of Ophthalmology. 2026. — DOI
2. Ponsioen T, Hashimoto Y, Invernizzi A, et al. Outliers of Treatment Frequency in Retinal Vein Occlusion. Clinical & Experimental Ophthalmology. 2025;53(4):409-420. — Full text (open access)
3. Invernizzi A, Airaldi M, Cozzi M, et al. Impact of cataract surgery on patients receiving intravitreal therapy for retinal vein occlusion. Clinical & Experimental Ophthalmology. 2025;53(4):374-383. — Full text (open access)
4. Garay-Aramburu G, Hunt A, Arruabarrena C, et al. Initial response and 12-month outcomes after commencing dexamethasone or VEGF inhibitors for retinal vein occlusion. Scientific Reports. 2024;14:6122. — Full text (open access)
5. Alforja S, Hunt A, Nguyen V, et al. Three-Year Outcomes of VEGF Inhibitors in Naive Branch Retinal Vein Occlusion. Ophthalmology Retina. 2024. — DOI
6. Hunt A, Nguyen V, Bhandari S, et al. Central Retinal Vein Occlusion 36-Month Outcomes with Anti-VEGF. Ophthalmology Retina. 2023;7(4):338-345. — DOI
7. Hunt AR, Nguyen V, Arnold JJ, et al. Hemiretinal vein occlusion 12-month outcomes are unique with vascular endothelial growth factor inhibitors. British Journal of Ophthalmology. 2022. — Full text (open access)
8. Wang N, Hunt A, Nguyen V, et al. One-year real-world outcomes of bevacizumab for macular oedema secondary to retinal vein occlusion. Clinical & Experimental Ophthalmology. 2022;50(9):1038-1046. — DOI
9. Niedzwiecki M, Hunt A, Nguyen V, et al. 12-month outcomes of ranibizumab versus aflibercept for macular oedema in central retinal vein occlusion. Acta Ophthalmologica. 2022;100(4):e920-e927. — Full text (open access)
10. Hunt AR, Nguyen V, Creuzot-Garcher CP, et al. Twelve-month outcomes of ranibizumab versus aflibercept for macular oedema in branch retinal vein occlusion. British Journal of Ophthalmology. 2021. — DOI

For more on A/Prof Hunt’s research, see Research and Academic Roles.