OZONE THERAPY IN DIFFERENT OPHTHALMOLOGIC DISEASES

. E. C. Díaz, L.Borrego1, S. Menéndez2, L. R. Borrego3, R. A. Borrego3. V. I. Lenin Provincial Hospital, Holguín, Cuba. 1Provincial Center of Retinosis Pigmentaria, Holguín, Cuba. 2Ozone Research Center, Cuba. 3Faculty of Medicine, Holguín , Cuba.

Since 1992, we have been using ozone therapy in our province, like a new therapeutic option in the treatment of Retinitis Pigmentosa. Taking into account the different medical properties of ozone: Improvement of the oxygen transportation to tissue, activation of the enzymes participating in peroxide or oxygen radical scavenging, immunological and metabolic modulator, as well as to be a therapy ease to apply, we decided to use ozone therapy in others ophthalmologic diseases. 180 patients were treated with daily rectal ozone therapy, during 20 days, representing 80 with Retinitis Pigmentosa (no systemic, stage I and II), 45 with progressive myopia, 25 with chronic glaucoma of open angle (tonometrically compensated), 20 with optic atrophy (less than one year of evolution and not hereditary), 10 with diabetic retinopathy (no proliferative). Healing criteria was according to each disease. Clinical evaluation was made each 3 months, up to 1 year. In patients with Retinitis Pigmentosa, 75 % improved their visual acuity (post-treatment and 6 months later). After 1 year, 23 % of improvement still remained. According to visual field, 76 % of patients improved it after treatment and up to 9 months, but after 1 year, 16 % lost their improvement. Respect to progressive myopia, the visual acuity increased in 78 % (post-treatment and 9 months later) and remained 58 % after 1 year. In glaucoma, 65 % increased the visual acuity (post-treatment and 9 months later), maintaining 53 % of improvement after 1 year. Visual field increased in 76 % of patients, posttreatment and after 1 year. In diabetic retinopathy, 60 % improved their visual acuity (post-treatment), diminishing to 40 %, 6 months later and 20 %, after 1 year. Respect to optic atrophy, 45 % of improvement in visual field was achieved (post-treatment) maintaining its figure after 1 year. It is concluded that ozone therapy offers very good results in this opthalmologic diseases, without side effects, being necessary to repeat the treatment in dependence of the disease and the patient evolutions.