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CompletedNCT03317847BVDUpdated Jun 25, 2025

Bromfenac Versus Dexamethasone After Cataract Surgery

A Phase 4 interventional study of Bromfenac 0.09 % Ophthalmic Solution and Dexamethasone 0.1% ophthalmic suspension in Inflammation Eye, sponsored by Azienda USL Reggio Emilia - IRCCS. Completed at 1 site in Italy. Open to participants aged 60 Years to 90 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-06-25.

Sponsored by Azienda USL Reggio Emilia - IRCCS · Phase 4, Interventional, and Treatment

Phase
Phase 4
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
92
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
60 Years to 90 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

The aim of the study is to compare bromfenac to dexamethasone eye drops to control inflammation after cataract surgery. Inflammation in the anterior chamber of the eye will be measured by a Laser Flare Photometer (LFP).

Read the detailed description

The BVD study is a phase IV, single centre, randomized, active-control, parallel design, open-label trial comparing Bromfenac ophthalmic solution 0.1% and Dexamethasone ophthalmic suspension 0.1% in patients older than 60 years after unilateral cataract surgery.

A total of 76 patients (38 for each arm) will be included in this study. Patients will be selected among subjects who underwent cataract surgery the day before the study enrolment. Enrolment will take place at the participating hospital.

Eligible subjects will be sequentially assigned, according to a computer-generated randomization list (1:1), to one of the following treatment groups:

  • Experimental Arm: Bromfenac ophthalmic solution 0.1% eye drops, 2 times per day in the study eye for two weeks;
  • Standard Arm: Dexamethasone ophthalmic suspension 0.1% eye drops, 4 times per day in the study eye for the first week and 2 times per day in the study eye for the second week.

Each group must start the drops the day after cataract surgery, for two weeks.

The first post-operative clinical evaluation is planned the day after cataract surgery. The following procedures will be performed on the study eye and data will be collected during this first clinical encounter:

  • Eye Drops Usage training
  • Concomitant medications
  • Best-corrected Visual Acuity
  • Laser Flare Photometry
  • Slit lamp biomicroscopy
  • Intracular pressure (IOP) with pneumotonometer,
  • Dilated fundus ophthalmoscopy
  • Ocular Comfort Grading Assessment

At least six post-operative follow-up visits are planned after 3, 7, 9, 11, 14 days (±1 day) and 30 days (±3 days) from cataract extraction plus possible adjunctive controls if problems/complications will occur. The following procedures will be performed on the study eye and data will be collected during all clinical encounters:

  • Compliance with study medication
  • Concomitant medications
  • Best-corrected Visual Acuity (only day 7, 14, 30)
  • Laser Flare Photometry
  • Optical Coherence Tomography testing (only day 30)
  • Slit lamp biomicroscopy (only day 7, 14 and 30)
  • IOP with pneumotonometer (only day 7, 14 and 30)
  • Dilated fundus ophthalmoscopy (only day 30)
  • Ocular Comfort Grading Assessment (only day 7, 14 and 30)
  • Adverse events
02

Conditions studied

  • Inflammation Eye

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03

In context

Endophthalmitis

65 studies on the registry are indexed under Endophthalmitis; 9 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 92 is below the median of 111 across 40 interventional studies indexed under Endophthalmitis.

Browse Endophthalmitis studies →

Lead sponsor

Azienda USL Reggio Emilia - IRCCS is the lead sponsor of 93 studies on the registry; 26 are open to participants now.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
60 Years to 90 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  1. Age > 60 year old.
  2. Uneventful cataract surgery. Surgical procedure, as described in the patients chart, should be free of any form of intraoperative complication that may increase postoperative inflammation.
  3. Availability of relevant ocular history, including: Best Corrected Visual Acuity testing, Laser Flare Photometry, Optical Coherence Tomography, slit lamp biomicroscopy, intraocular pressure (with pneumotonometer), dilated fundus ophthalmoscopy.
  4. Ability and willing to follow all instructions and attend all study visits
  5. Ability to self-administer study drug (or have a caregiver available to instill all doses of study drug)
  6. Ability and willing to provide for this study protocol.
  7. No ocular, topical, systemic, or inhaled NSAIDs or ocular, topical, or systemic gentamicin, or cyclosporine ophthalmic emulsion within 1 week of product initiation or throughout the duration of the study;
  8. No topical, inhaled, or systemic within 15 days or depot corticosteroids within 45 days of the investigational product initiation or or throughout the duration of the study;
  9. No oral tamsulosin at any time during the clinical trial;
  10. Any ocular, topical, or systemic medication that could interfere with normal lacrimation, wound healing, the investigational product, or the interpretation of clinical trial results.
  11. For women, the menopausal state is assumed.

Exclusion criteria

EXCLUSION CRITERIA

  1. Ocular exclusion criteria:

    1. history of ocular inflammation or trauma;
    2. history of previous intraocular surgery;
    3. corneal haze, edema or any condition that can interfere with LFP measurement by means of reduced transparency of the cornea;
    4. preoperative LFP value > 12 ph/ms (as per patient' chart)
    5. pseudoexfoliation lentis;
    6. retinal vascular diseases;
    7. diabetic retinopathy;
    8. any variation of the foveal profile at OCT (including macular edema and epiretinal membranes)
    9. moderate to severe forms of age related macular degeneration
    10. presence of any sign of intraocular inflammation (including cells or flare in the anterior chamber) in either eye (including uveitis);
    11. intraoperative complications during the surgical procedure that may increase postoperative inflammation; this includes, in particular, patients with posterior capsule rupture;
    12. marked intraocular inflammation at postoperative day 1, including keratic precipitates or any form of uveitis;
    13. BCVA ≤ 1/10 in the non study eye
  2. Systemic exclusion criteria:

    1. inflammatory diseases;
    2. any active or chronic/recurrent disease that was uncontrolled and was likely to affect wound healing;
    3. severe blood dyscrasia or bone marrow suppression;
    4. uncontrolled/unstable peptic ulcer disease
    5. any uncontrolled/unstable pulmonary, cardiac, vascular, , hepatic, renal, or central nervous system disease;
  3. Known to bromfenac or to any component of the products, procedural medications, salicylates, or other NSAIDs.
  4. Patients cannot be enrolled in another clinical study concurrently
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(5)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

Informed consent

Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.

You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.

Investigational drug or device

A drug or device being studied in a clinical trial.

It may be new, or already approved and being studied for another use, dose or form. Criteria often leave out people who took part in another study of one within a recent period, commonly 30 days or five half-lives.

Corticosteroids (steroids)

Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.

Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.

Autoimmune disease

A condition in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease.

Immunotherapy studies often leave out active autoimmune disease, and some name exceptions, such as thyroid disease on replacement hormone. Check the exceptions this study lists.

Hypersensitivity

An allergy, or another reaction of the immune system, to a substance. “Hypersensitivity to the study drug” means a known allergic reaction to it — not every side effect a medicine can have.

05

Study design

Phase
Phase 4
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
Double (Participant, Outcomes assessor)
Enrollment
92 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Bromfenac

    Patients randomized to this arm will receive Bromfenac 0.09 % Ophthalmic Solution BID for 2 weeks

    Drug: Bromfenac 0.09 % Ophthalmic Solution

  • Active comparator
    Dexamethasone

    Patients randomized to this arm will receive Dexamethasone 0.1 % Ophthalmic Suspension QID for one week and BID for the following week

    Drug: Dexamethasone 0.1% ophthalmic suspension

Interventions

  • Patients will self-administer 1 drop of Bromfenac twice daily to the affected eye beginning 1 day after cataract surgery and then continuing through the first 14 days of the postoperative period.

    Also known as: Yellox

  • Patients will self-administer 1 drop of Dexamethasone to the study eye beginning 1 day after cataract surgery 4 times daily during the first postoperative week and 2 times daily in the second postoperative week.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Flare to baseline

    Time needed to revert the postoperative flare (measured by laser flare meter in the anterior chamber of the eye) to the preoperative or lower level.

    Time frame: Within one month

  2. Flare at day 14

    Proportion of patients who will have a postoperative flare at day 14 equal or inferior to the preoperative value in the two groups

    Time frame: 14 days

Secondary outcomes

  1. Best Corrected Visual Acuity (BCVA)

    Proportion of subjects with BCVA equal to 10/10 at day 14 in the two groups

    Time frame: 14 days

  2. Macular thickness at optical coherence tomography (OCT)

    Proportion of patients with central macular thickness greater than 300 microns at day 30 in the two groups

    Time frame: 1 month

  3. Ocular Comfort Grading Assessment (OCGA)

    Safety endpoint: proportion of patients with no ocular discomfort at day 14. Ocular discomfort will be assessed by the OCGA scale. The OCGA measures 7 ocular symptoms (eye pain, tearing, itching, foreign body sensation, photophobia, eye discharge, haziness); at visits, patients will assess the severity by grading each symptom as none (0), mild (1), moderate (2), or severe (3)

    Time frame: 14 days

07

Study locations

1 site
  • Arcispedale Santa Maria Nuova IRCSS - Ophthalmology
    Reggio Emilia, RE 42123, Italy
08

References and documents

Publications

  • De Maria M, Coassin M, Mastrofilippo V, Cimino L, Iannetta D, Fontana L. Persistence of Inflammation After Uncomplicated Cataract Surgery: A 6-Month Laser Flare Photometry Analysis. Adv Ther. 2020 Jul;37(7):3223-3233. doi: 10.1007/s12325-020-01383-1. Epub 2020 May 21. PubMed 32440977 ↗
  • Coassin M, De Maria M, Mastrofilippo V, Braglia L, Cimino L, Sartori A, Fontana L. Anterior Chamber Inflammation After Cataract Surgery: A Randomized Clinical Trial Comparing Bromfenac 0.09% to Dexamethasone 0.1. Adv Ther. 2019 Oct;36(10):2712-2722. doi: 10.1007/s12325-019-01076-4. Epub 2019 Sep 3. PubMed 31482510 ↗

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

09

Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Jun 25, 2025, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT03317847
Lead sponsor
Azienda USL Reggio Emilia - IRCCS
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Oct 23, 2017
Start date
Oct 16, 2017
Primary completion
Jun 14, 2018
Completion
Dec 21, 2019
Last update
Jun 25, 2025

Study contacts

Marco Coassin, MD PhD
principal investigator · Santa Maria Nuova Hospital IRCCS
Luigi Fontana
study chair · Santa Maria Nuova Hospital IRCCS

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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This study is completed, as verified in Jan 2019. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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Studies of the drug tested here: Bromfenac

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