Clinical staging and visual prognosis of patients with papilloedema

Introduction: Papilledema is one of the true neuro ophthalmic emergencies. Most patients with elevated intra-cranial pressure (ICP) present to ophthalmologist with non-visual symptoms such as headache, nausea, vomiting and sometimes CSF rhinorrhoea. Patients may also note transient obscuration of visual (TOV) -episodes of unilateral or bilateral vision loss lasting 5-15 seconds. Papilledema serves as an important indicator and warning signal of intracranial pathology. Materials and Methods: It was a cross-sectional study. Patients with papilloedema were examined for clinical stage (Early. Established, Chronic and Atrophic), aetiology, visual acuity, colour vision, contrast and perimetry. Results: The most common aetiology for papilloedema was found to be ICSOL. Maximum number of patients were found to have early papilloedema. The correlation showed that visual acuity, colour vision and contrast were less affected in early stages of papilloedema as compared to late stages.