Abstract
Background:
Primary optic neuropathy in Behçet’s syndrome (PONBS) is limited to a few case reports.
Objective:
To investigate the clinical features, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) changes, and visual prognosis of PONBS.
Methods:
Sixty-one patients who presented with first onset of optic neuritis and fulfilled the International Criteria for Behçet’s Disease (ICBD) were evaluated.
Results:
The female-to-male ratio was 1.7:1. No patient had other central nervous system (CNS) disease. In 67 eyes with optic nerve abnormalities on MRI scan, perineural enhancement around the orbital optic nerve (46 eyes, 68.7%) was significantly more frequent than was increased signal in the optic nerve itself (31 eyes, 46.3%; p = 0.000), typically with sunflower-like appearance on coronal view (33 eyes, 71.7%). Two patients (3.6%) relapsed during follow-up (median 12 months). Kaplan–Meier survival analysis estimated the cumulative risk of severe visual loss (⩽0.1) at 24 months was 14.7% in females versus 62.5% in males (hazard ratio (HR), 0.16; 95% confidence interval, 0.05–0.54).
Conclusion:
PONBS frequently presents with isolated optic neuropathy in females. The sunflower-like sign might be a distinctive MRI feature. Short-term recurrence is very rare. Males have a higher cumulative risk of severe visual loss.
Keywords
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
