Nh. Atebara et al., EFFICACY OF ANTERIOR-CHAMBER PARACENTESIS AND CARBOGEN IN TREATING ACUTE NONARTERITIC CENTRAL RETINAL ARTERY-OCCLUSION, Ophthalmology, 102(12), 1995, pp. 2029-2034
Purpose: To determine whether anterior chamber paracentesis and Carbog
en inhalation therapy (95% oxygen, 5% carbon dioxide) produce a signif
icant difference in final Visual acuity in eyes with acute nonarteriti
c central retinal artery occlusion (CRAO), compared with untreated eye
s. Methods: in this retrospective study, the records of 89 consecutive
patients seen at the Retina Vascular Unit of Wills Eye Hospital with
acute CRAO who received either both anterior chamber paracentesis and
Carbogen therapy, or neither anterior chamber paracentesis or Carbogen
therapy, were reviewed. Forty patients were treated with both therapi
es, whereas 49 received neither modality. Visual acuities before treat
ment and at subsequent follow-up visits were measured. All patients se
en within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms were treated, whereas most
of those seen after 24 hours were not treated, Results: Stratified Wi
lcoxon analysis showed no statistically significant difference between
the treated and untreated groups (P = 0.87) after adjusting for initi
al vision. A posthoc power analysis for the difference between two pro
portions showed that the study had adequate power (0.80) to detect a d
ifference of the proportion of improved patients of 10% versus 25% bet
ween the treated and untreated groups. Conclusion: The data suggest th
at anterior chamber paracentesis and Carbogen therapy offer little ben
efit for treating acute nonarteritic CRAO.