English

Abstract

BACKGROUND Blindness is a major health problem worldwide and India has been an epicenter in the number of blindness cases. The causes of blindness, natural history differs between western countries and India. When it comes to optic neuritis the pattern in developing countries is different than developed countries. Multiple sclerosis is one of the major causes of disability disease in US and one of the most common early manifestations is optic neuritis. Early identification and early management have shown promises in reducing ocular morbidity as well as neurological morbidity and recurrences. But the trend of optic neuritis in India is very different and not many studies have been conducted to know about this disease and its causes in this geographical region. We wanted to evaluate the clinical profile and visual outcome of optic neuritis in India. METHODS It was a prospective study done for a duration of 10.8 +/- 8.4 months in which all patients clinically diagnosed with optic neuritis were studied. Thirty patients were included in the study. They were followed up and visual parameters were assessed and thus clinical profiling and visual outcomes were done. RESULTS Mean age was 39.3667 ± 14.03563 years. Female preponderance was seen (63.33 % of cases). Retrobulbar neuritis (56.7 % of eyes) was more common than papillitis (43.33 % of eyes) but papillitis was a more common presentation in males (73.7 %). Bilateral presentation was seen in 23.33 % cases. All patients complained of DOV but pain on ocular movements were complained by 36.66 % patients. Baseline median logMAR visual acuity (VA) was 1.17 ± 0.8, which improved to 1.6 ± 0.6, within one week and 0.79 +/- 0.6 within one month improving to 0.55 +/- 0.6 in three months. Approximately 64.68 % of eyes retained VA of or 6/18 or more. Colour vision recovery was noted in 39.86 %. Demyelinating lesions in the brain were present in 2 patients, one of which was already diagnosed as MS. One case on follow up was eventually diagnosed as multiple sclerosis. CONCLUSIONS In Indian scenario the profile of optic neuritis is different. Here incidence of papillitis is more or equal to that of retrobulbar optic neuritis, visual recovery is poor, causes being more of infectious or idiopathic and less recurrence rate. KEY WORDS Optic Neuritis, Clinical Profile, Visual Outcome, Developing Countries Ontt