Amaurosis Fugax in Ocular Vascular Occlusive Disorders

Abstract

Amaurosis fugax is a transient brief blindness, dimming, fogging, or blurring of vision, lasting from a few seconds to minutes or even hours, depending upon the etiology. It has also been called transient visual obscuration or blackout. It occurs in many ocular vascular occlusive disorders, i.e., central retinal artery occlusion, branch retinal arteriole occlusion, central retinal vein occlusion alone, central retinal vein occlusion with cilioretinal artery occlusion, hemicentral retinal vein occlusion, branch retinal vein occlusion, ocular ischemic syndrome, and both non-arteritic and arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy. There are a few reports about amaurosis fugax in giant cell arteritis [1–7]. Amaurosis fugax may be the presenting symptom and, if so, always requires urgent evaluation. No comprehensive study on amaurosis fugax in ocular vascular occlusive disorders had been published and no detailed discussion of its pathogeneses in those disorders. Therefore, I conducted a comprehensive, systematic study in a large cohort of patients dealing with prevalence of amaurosis fugax in central retinal artery occlusion, branch retinal arteriole occlusion, central retinal vein occlusion alone, central retinal vein occlusion with cilioretinal artery occlusion, hemicentral retinal vein occlusion, branch retinal vein occlusion, ocular ischemic syndrome, both non-arteritic and arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, and giant cell arteritis [8]. Various features of all these diseases are discussed in previous chapters. In this chapter, I shall discuss only the amaurosis fugax features in them. The findings of my study are discussed in detail elsewhere [8] and following are the main features.