We injected botulinum toxin into the horizontal rectus muscles of the right eyes of 2 patients who had acquired pendular nystagmus with horizontal, vertical, and torsional components. This treatment successfully abolished the horizontal component of the nystagmus in the injected eye in both patients for approximately 2 months. Both patients showed a small but measurable improvement of vision in the injected eye that may have been limited by coexistent disease of the visual pathways. The vertical and torsional components of the nystagmus persisted in both patients. In 1 patient, the horizontal component of nystagmus in the noninjected eye increased; we ascribe this finding to plastic-adaptive changes in response to paresis caused by the botulinum toxin. Such plastic-adaptive changes and direct side effects of the injections--such as diplopia and ptosis--may limit the effectiveness of botulinum toxin in the treatment of acquired nystagmus. Neither patient elected to repeat the botulinum treatment.

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Objective: A role for microorganisms in giant cell arteritis (GCA) has long been suspected. We describe the microbiomes of temporal arteries from patients with GCA and controls.Methods: Temporal artery biopsies from patients suspected to have GCA were collected under aseptic conditions and snap-frozen. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and long-read 16S rRNA-gene sequencing was used to examine microbiomes of temporal arteries. Taxonomic classification of bacterial sequences was performed to the genus level and relative abundances were calculated. Microbiome differential abundances were analyzed by principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) with comparative Unifrac distances and predicted functional profiling using PICRUSt.Results : Forty-seven patients, including 9 with biopsy-positive GCA, 15 with biopsy-negative GCA and 23 controls without GCA, were enrolled. FISH for bacterial DNA revealed signal in the arterial media. Beta, but not alpha, diversity differed between GCA and control temporal arteries (P = 0.042). Importantly, there were no significant differences between biopsy-positive and biopsy-negative GCA (P > 0.99). The largest differential abundances seen between GCA and non-GCA temporal arteries included Proteobacteria (P), Bifidobacterium (g), Parasutterella (g) and Granulicatella (g) [Log 2-fold change > 4].Conclusion: Temporal arteries are not sterile, but rather are inhabited by a community of bacteria. We have demonstrated that there are microbiomic differences between GCA and non-GCA temporal arteries, but not between biopsy-positive and biopsy-negative GCA.