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J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2009;80:1002-1005 doi:10.1136/jnnp.2008.166207
  • Research paper

Distinctive retinal nerve fibre layer and vascular changes in neuromyelitis optica following optic neuritis

  1. A J Green,
  2. B A C Cree
  1. Multiple Sclerosis Center, Department of Neurology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr A J Green, 350 Parnassus Ave Suite 908, San Francisco, CA 94117, USA; agreen{at}ucsf.edu
  • Received 24 October 2008
  • Revised 23 March 2009
  • Accepted 4 April 2009

Abstract

Patients and methods: This is a cross sectional study comparing the retinal features of optic neuritis (ON) between 20 multiple sclerosis (MS) and 16 neuromyelitis optica (NMO) patients with a history of ON (visual acuity at time of attack >20/100) matched for age and gender using optical coherence tomography (OCT) and fundoscopy.

Results: Compared with MS, NMO patients often had: (1) vascular changes, including attenuation of the peripapillary vascular tree (3/40 MS eyes, 22/32 NMO eyes; p = 0.001) and focal arteriolar narrowing (0/40 MS eyes and 9/32 NMO eyes; p<0.0001), (2) a lower average nerve fibre layer (NFL) thickness (59.2 μm compared with 82.0 μm in MS; p = 0.004) and (3) nearly twice the NFL thinning after controlling for final visual acuity (32.1 vs 17.6 μm; p = 0.004). Patients with NMO had more severe and diffuse axonal injury of the NFL compared with MS.

Conclusion: These NFL and fundoscopic findings suggest that some of the injury seen in NMO may be vascularly mediated. These inner retinal vascular changes are reminiscent of blood vessel wall thickening previously reported in the optic nerve and spinal cord at autopsy. If the retinal changes share a common pathology to those in the spinal cord and optic nerve, these observations suggest that vascular changes may be detectable during life.

Footnotes

  • Funding This work was in part supported by NIH K23-NS048869 (BACC) and NIH KL2- RR024130 (AJG).

  • Competing interests None.

  • Ethics approval Ethics committee approval was obtained from the University of California San Francisco.

  • ▸ A supplementary table is published online only at http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/vol80/issue9

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