Treatment
Once NAION happens, it was thought that there was no accepted treatment to reverse the damage. However, a recent large study has shown that if patients are treated with large doses of corticosteroid therapy during the early stages of NAION, in eyes with initial visual acuity of 20/70 or worse, seen within 2 weeks of onset, there was visual acuity improvement in 70% in the treated group compared to 41% in the untreated group (odds ratio of improvement: 3.39; 95% CI:1.62, 7.11; p ¼ 0.001) (Graefes Arch. Clin. Exp. Ophthalmol 2008;246,:1029–1046.). That study and a natural history study on NAION (Ophthalmology 2008;115: 298–305.) showed that visual acuity can improve up to 6 months and not after that. To minimize the risk of further visual loss in the fellow eye or the same eye, it is essential to reduce the risk factors. Common sense dictates trying to control the cardiovascular risk factors for many reasons, including protection from this happening to the second eye. Sudden vision loss should lead to an ophthalmological consultation. If NAION is suspected, then ideally a neuro-ophthalmologist's consultation should be obtained.
There is much research currently underway looking at ways to protect the nerve (neuroprotection) or even regenerate new fibers within the optic nerve. There are no current clinical trials for the treatment of NAION. So far we have no evidence that the so-called neuroprotectors have any beneficial effect in NAION.
In addition to such research, patents have been applied for by Pfizer, The University of Southern California, Otsuka Pharmaceutical and other individual inventors for innovations related to the treatment of anterior ischemic optic neuropathy.
Read more about this topic: Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“The treatment of African and African American culture in our education was no different from their treatment in Tarzan movies.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“Our treatment of both older people and children reflects the value we place on independence and autonomy. We do our best to make our children independent from birth. We leave them all alone in rooms with the lights out and tell them, “Go to sleep by yourselves.” And the old people we respect most are the ones who will fight for their independence, who would sooner starve to death than ask for help.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“The motion picture made in Hollywood, if it is to create art at all, must do so within such strangling limitations of subject and treatment that it is a blind wonder it ever achieves any distinction beyond the purely mechanical slickness of a glass and chromium bathroom.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)