Symptoms of methanol poisoning often occur 12–24 hours after oral consumption, and visual symptoms are seen in approximately 50% of cases. This study aims to investigate the role of optic nerve diffusion status on cranio-orbital magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in predicting visual prognosis in cases of methanol intoxication. The authors report retrospective diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) data from eight clinic patients (16 eyes). The relationship between clinical and laboratory findings, treatment regimen, visual prognosis, and imaging findings is reported. Diffusion restriction (DR) of the optic nerve on DWI was observed in seven (43%) eyes. Regardless of the clinical and laboratory characteristics and treatment regime, visual acuity (VA) improved in eyes in which DR regressed over the follow-up period. The authors conclude that DWI of the optic nerve during the acute phase of methanol poisoning may provide prognostically important data. In addition, improvement of DR during follow-up may be an indicator of an increase in VA. As this is a small retrospective analysis, further prospective studies with larger sample size are now required to validation these results.
Predicting visual prognosis of patients with methanol poisoning
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