الفهرس 
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Abstract
ptic neuropathy is a heterogeneous collection of optic nerve disorders, which may occur secondary to ischemia, toxins, nutritional deficiencies or compression of the nerve. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 106 patients (45 males and 61 females) with a mean age of 44.5 years (range, 1-70) who presented to the neuro-ophthalmology clinic in NEC Rod El Farag. The aim was to map the varieties of optic nerve disorders in the Egyptian society. AION was the leading form of optic neuropathy in our sample, followed by papilledema and compressive optic neuropathy. These were followed by optic neuritis, traumatic optic neuropathy, diabetic papillitis, hereditary optic neuropathy and post-papilledemic optic atrophy, in descending order of frequency.
Many cases of optic neuropathy have associated medical disorders that may play some role in the pathogenesis of the condition. Patients with benign intracranial hypertension (BIH) were the most frequently found in our study, followed by cases of diabetes mellitus, hypertension, brain tumor. The association of more than one medical comorbidity in the same patient was also demonstrated, with patients suffering from various combinations of diabetes plus hypertension (the most common
O
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association in our study), hypertension plus BIH, hypertension plus cerebral hemorrhage, and a triad of diabetes, hypertension and multiple sclerosis that was recorded in a single patient in our study. It is worth noting that a considerable proportion of our patients (30%) had no detectable medical comorbidities at the time of presentation. Besides the broad spectrum of visual field deficits found in cases of optic neuropathy, there is also a loss of visual acuity that, may be slight or profound. The visual acuity in our patients ranged between 0.01 and 0.7 according to Log Mar notation (Mean: 0.1). The visual acuity of 50% of our patients were in the range of < 0.333 to ≥ 0.05, and only 15.1% of the patients had a visual acuity of ≥ 0.333. Sex differences in the distribution of the various causes of optic neuropathy were marked in cases of papilledema, optic neuritis and diabetic papillitis (all had a marked female predominance). The only pattern of optic neuropathy that showed a marked male predominance was the traumatic pattern of optic neuropathy, which is known worldwide to be more prevalent in males due to trauma at work, secondary to attack, sports or road traffic accidents. Our traumatic optic neuropathy patients were exclusively males.
No significant sex differences were noted in our cases which were diagnosed as hereditary optic neuropathy or post-
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papilledemic optic atrophy. No significant sex differences were also found in the prevalence of associated medical comorbidities, except in cases with benign intracranial hypertension, which were predominantly female.