Better vision outcomes among children with idiopathic vs. ocular disease-related nystagmus
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Key takeaways:
- Patients with idiopathic infantile nystagmus syndrome had better best-corrected visual acuity and contrast sensitivity.
- However, these patients scored lower on a nystagmus-specific quality-of-life questionnaire.
Patients with idiopathic infantile nystagmus syndrome had better best-corrected visual acuity but scored lower on quality-of-life assessments compared with those whose condition was associated with ocular disease, according to research.
“Idiopathic infantile nystagmus syndrome is the most common type in clinical practice,” Claudia Fossataro, MD, of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome, and colleagues wrote in Optometry and Vision Science. “It typically occurs in the absence of other ocular or systemic disorders, and it is clinically characterized by a horizontal oscillation that remains horizontal in the different eye gaze positions and a direction consistent with the gazeway.”
They continued, “Although nystagmus has already been well-investigated, there are still many unanswered questions about its diagnosis and visual and psychological impact in pediatric age.”
In a multicenter, observational study, Fossataro and colleagues examined the clinical features, management and psychological effect of infantile nystagmus syndrome (INS) among 43 patients, of whom 28 had idiopathic INS (IINS; median age, 15.8 years; 82.1% boys) and 15 had INS associated with ocular disease (INSOD; median age, 12.3 years; 46.7% boys).
Researchers assessed participants’ ophthalmologic and orthoptic features and effect of visual impairment using the nystagmus quality-of-life questionnaire.
According to results, strabismus was more prevalent in the INSOD subgroup (93.3% vs. 57.1%; P = .017). Researchers reported anomalous head position in 96.4% of the IINS group and 80% of the INSOD group, with better binocular distance best-corrected visual acuity in the IINS group, in both primary and anomalous head positions (P < .001). The IINS group also had greater contrast sensitivity in both eyes (P < .001).
However, the IINS group had significantly lower scores on the nystagmus quality-of-life questionnaire compared with the INSOD group (median, 90.5 vs. 94; P < .001).
“Further studies with greater sample size are necessary to increase the knowledge on infantile nystagmus syndrome,” Fossataro and colleagues wrote.
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