Study of Clinical Profile of Optic Neuritis Patients in Hilly Region of North India

Abstract

Background: Optic neuritis (ON) is an acute inflammatory disorder of the optic nerve. Objective: To study the epidemiology and clinical course of the optic neuritis in our tertiary care centre and To study the outcome of patients of optic neuritis.  Methods: The present study was prospective, interventional study conducted in the Department of Ophthalmology, Shri Guru Ram Rai Institute of Medical and Health Sciences, Dehradun.Study was conducted on patients age < 15years  diagnosed with optic neuritis and  the study was conducted for a period of  for the period of 1 year and 6 months. Result: The study included total number of 25 eyes of 16 patients diagnosed with optic neuritis. The mean age of the patients ranged from 21-30 years (mean=33.0 +11.8 years). There were 11 female patients (68.8%). Bilateral involvement was seen in 56.3 % of cases. The time of presentation was <1 week in 64% of cases.48 %( 12) eyes presented with BCVA <1/60 at presentation .Out of 25 eyes 60% eyes showed improvement in BCVA 4 weeks  post treatment. RAPD was present in 100% of patients at presentation. Color vision was found defective in 24% of the eyes. Disc edema was seen in 40% of the eyes. Temporal pallor was found in 12% of the eyes. GHT was found outside normal limits (ONL) in 9% of the eyes. Mean MD was found -6.91+3.96 SD and mean PSD was found 6.21+3.94 SD. VEP was found prolonged in 100% of the eyes (mean=145.12+18.96). Conclusion: The majority of the cases in our study were young females presenting with typical optic neuritis and good visual prognosis but systemic work up for diseases like MS, Transverse myleitis, TB must be considered as these are the cases which reoccur and affect visual prognosis.

Keywords: Clinical Profile, Optic Neuritis, Color vision