PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Francesca Puledda
AU  - Lau Tze
AU  - Christoph Schankin
AU  - Peter Goadsby
TI  - PO070 Treatment effect in visual snow
AID  - 10.1136/jnnp-2017-ABN.102
DP  - 2017 Dec 01
TA  - Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry
PG  - A30--A30
VI  - 88
IP  - Suppl 1
4099  - http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/88/Suppl_1/A30.2.short
4100  - http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/88/Suppl_1/A30.2.full
SO  - J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry2017 Dec 01; 88
AB  - Patients with visual snow suffer from pan-field, dynamic visual disturbance. Proposed diagnostic criteria require at least two additional visual symptoms from: palinopsia, entoptic phenomena, photophobia and nyctalopia. Little is known regarding useful pharmacological treatments for patients. The aim of this study was to gain knowledge on the effect of a number of commonly used medications on visual snow. A questionnaire was prepared in collaboration with the patient group Eye-on-Vision and sent to subjects who had expressed an interest in research. It required to select from a list of drugs, including antiepileptics, antidepressants and benzodiazepines, the treatments that caused a change in symptoms, with either an improvement or a worsening. The study was approved by KCL Research Ethics Panel. For a total of n=182 patients, the effect of ninety-six drugs was recorded in 514 reports. Antidepressants and antiepileptics were the most commonly used drugs; they showed no effect on visual snow in 53% of reports. Visual snow is a highly disabling syndrome, for which there is no widely accepted treatment. More effort needs to be made in understanding its pathophysiology to allow focused treatment strategies.