Search

Eye (2003) 17, 270-272. doi:10.1038/sj.eye.6700283 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To determine the clinical features of 272 patients who were diagnosed with optic neuritis at an ophthalmologicai clinic in Japan. Methods: We reviewed the records of patients examined between January 1977 and late June 1999. Results: The ratio of women to men was 1.7:1. The mean age at onset was 35 years and 80.5% were unilateral. The most frequent complaint was a vision decrease in 82.4%. The disc appeared normal in 38.5%. The median visual acuity at onset was 0.1: it was 1.0 at the recovered stage. The mean time required for visual recovery was 92.3 days from the onset. The most common known cause of optic neuritis was multiple sclerosis (MS)(22.8%). The recurrence rate was 22.0% and the mean number of recurrences was 2.9. The time for the development of disc pallor was 124.8 days. Conclusions: We found no racial difference in the incidence of MS as has been reported between Caucasians and Japanese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]