OZONE THERAPY IN PATIENTS SUFFERING FROM OPTIC NERVE DYSFUNCTION.

R. Santiesteban, S. Menéndez1, M. Francisco, S. Luis. Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Cuba. 1Ozone Research Center, Cuba.

One of the most frequent causes of blindness around the world is optic nerve dysfunction (OND), or optic atrophy, which can be the result of different disturbances affecting the visual pathway like ischemic, toxic, metabolic and hereditary-degenerative phenomena, injuries or compression, among others, producing this type of irreversible sequel. The ozone therapy is a very promising method to take into account. The main object of this study is to evaluate the feasibility to improve the visual function of a group of patients, with different degrees of OND with reduced possibilities of vision improvement, by means of ozone therapy. To 60 patients, suffering from OND of different etiologies and time of evolution, were applied the mixture ozone/oxygen endovenously by autohemotherapy, during 15 sessions. Ozone concentration and doses are used according to the biochemical status of each patient. An ophthalmological examination and a set of tests conformed by visual acuity (VA), visual field by Goldmann Perimetry (VF), visual evoked potentials (VEP), Pelli Robson Contrast Sensitivity Test (PRCST) was applied to patients before and after ozone therapy treatment. PRCST and VF were the parameters mostly improved in patients with 86 % and 83 % respectively, followed by VA (55 %) and VEP (37 %). Good results were achieved in all etiologies studied, except Leber optic atrophy, where no improvement was observed, neither objective nor subjective.