Adjunctive corticosteroid improves eyesight in NAION

The addition of the corticosteroid fluocortolone to standard therapy significantly improves both short- and long-term visual acuity in patients with nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), according to a study in Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience.

In a prospective randomized trial of 60 patients with NAION, researchers from the Institute of Experimental Ophthalmology, University of Münster, Germany found that patients treated with pentoxifylline alone had no significant beneficial effects on either visual acuity or visual field after three days and six months of treatment. However, adding fluocortolone significantly more likely to experience improvement and less likely to have worsened visual acuity. After six months of therapy two thirds of patients treated with the combination therapy had better long-term vision compared to only 14 per cent of those only treated with pentoxifylline alone.

Details of the study appears in “Visual outcome of patients following NAION after treatment with adjunctive fluocortolone,” V. Prokosch et al. Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, 2013. DOI 10.3233/RNN-120292.