Recovery of visual function in patients with biopsy-proven giant cell arteritis.

OBJECTIVE

To assess the visual function of patients with giant cell arteritis (GCA) who had visual loss from either anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (AION) or central retinal artery occlusion and had a subsequent improvement in visual acuity after treatment with corticosteroids.

DESIGN

Retrospective, observational case series.

PARTICIPANTS

Thirty-two consecutive patients with biopsy-proven GCA treated at one institution between January 1992 and December 1997.

INTERVENTION: Treatment with intravenous methylprednisolone 250 mg every 6 hours for 3 days, followed by oral prednisone 1 mg/kg daily for at least 4 weeks duration.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The number of patients with an improvement in visual acuity after treatment with intravenous methylprednisolone; neuro-ophthalmic evaluation, including visual acuity, funduscopy, and visual field examination of these patients.

RESULTS

Improvement in visual acuity occurred in 5 of 39 eyes (13%) with visual loss from biopsy-proven GCA, and all 5 patients had AION. Despite the improvement of visual acuity in these 5 patients, perimetry revealed marked constriction of the visual field in each affected eye.

CONCLUSIONS

The prognosis for visual improvement in GCA is poor. Although an improvement in visual acuity occurred in 5 of our patients, marked constriction of the visual field was present in all of them.