Clinical profile and short-term outcomes of optic neuritis patients in India

To evaluate the clinical profile and short-term visual outcome of optic neuritis (ON) patients in India.

In this prospective study carried out over a period of 3 years, 99 eyes of 83 ON patients were examined and followed up for 10.8 ± 8.2 months for type of presentation, recurrence rate, and visual outcome.

Mean age was 27.6 ± 8.8 years. Female preponderance was seen (70% of cases). Papillitis (53.5% of eyes) was more common than retrobulbar neuritis (46.5% of eyes). Bilateral presentation was seen in 19.3% cases. Baseline median logMAR visual acuity (VA) was 1.6 ± 0.8, which improved to 0.2 ± 0.6, with approximately 64% of eyes retaining VA of 20/40 or more. Two patients had previous diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS). MS was newly diagnosed in two patients. Recurrence was seen in 16% of eyes and was more common in cases of retrobulbar neuritis.

The clinical profile of ON in Indian patients is different from that in the Western population. Unlike reported in the Western literature, papillitis is frequent in the Indian setup, with lower recurrence rates but poorer outcomes.