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Novel treatment (new drug/intervention; established drug/procedure in new situation)
CASE REPORT
The efficacy of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the treatment of central retinal artery occlusion
  1. Andreia Soares,
  2. Nuno L Gomes,
  3. Luís Mendonça,
  4. Carla Ferreira
  1. Hospital de Braga, Braga, Portugal
  1. Correspondence to Dr Andreia Soares, andreiafilipa.brsoares{at}gmail.com

Summary

Central retinal artery occlusion (CRAO) is an ophthalmological emergency. Various treatment modalities have been tried, but none have shown to alter natural history of the disease. Hyperoxia can restore retinal oxygenation, and favourable results were obtained with hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). We report two patients with sudden visual loss due to CRAO treated with HBOT. Case 1: a 61-year-old female, presented with CRAO in her left eye(OS). She was submitted to eight sessions of HBOT(2.4atmosphere absolute (ATA)). BCVA(Best corrected visual acuity) improved from counting fingers (CF) to 1.0 and fluorescein angiography (FA) showed a normalisation. Vascular study showed a value of 8.8% for HbA1c and ventricular extrasystoles. Case 2: a 69-year-old male presented with CRAO in his OS. Nine sessions of HBOT(2.4 ATA) were performed. Best corrected visual acuity (BCVA)improved from CF to 0.8 and the FA was normalised. Vascular study revealed an atheromatous carotid disease, and cardiac pathology. HBOT seems to be beneficial on the recovery of vision following CRAO.

  • Eye
  • Retina

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2017-220113

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors AS: contribution to the conception and design of the work, acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data; draft the work; final approval of the version published; agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. NLG: contribution to the analysis and interpretation of data; critical revision for important intellectual content; final approval of the version published; agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. LM: contribution to the analysis and interpretation of data; critical revision for important intellectual content; final approval of the version published; agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. CF: contribution to the conception and design of the work, acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data; critical revision for important intellectual content; final approval of the version published; agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Obtained.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.