Multiple sclerosis and eye: Geometric complexity of the optic nerve head microvascularity-a pilot study

Abstract

Patients with unilateral optic neuritis without optic disc oedema (ON) affected by MS (n=6) were recruited from the Department of Medicine, Surgery and Neuroscience at the University of Siena. Three patients were female and three were male (mean age=32.3 years). In the control group, six patients were female and seven were male (mean age=48.7 years). Each patient underwent a complete neuro-ophthalmic examination, including assessment of visual acuity, colour vision, papillary reaction, slit-lamp examination, applanation tonometry, Goldman visual fi eld testing, visual evoked potentials, dilated fundoscopy and fl uorescein angiogram. All patients were examined using a fl uorescein angiogram within the fi rst two weeks after they reported the fi rst symptoms and before treatments; all patients gave informed consent. Fluorescein angiogram of normal subjects (n=13) were used as controls. The protocol for this research project was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Siena and it conforms to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki, 1955 (as revised, Edinburgh, 2000).