Cilioretinal Sparing Central Retinal Artery Occlusion from Giant Cell Arteritis

Abstract

A 93-year-old woman presented with a 1-day history of sudden painless vision loss in her right eye with a background of new temporal headaches and jaw claudication. Dilated fundus examination of the right eye showed mild retinal whitening and edema throughout the right fundus with selective sparing in the distribution of the cilioretinal artery. A diagnosis of giant-cell arteritis (GCA) was made and confirmed with temporal artery biopsy. Oral prednisone was initiated and her vision improved to 20/200 in the right eye at 3-month follow-up. GCA-related cilioretinal artery sparing central retinal artery occlusion is rare and may have mild improvement with promt treatment.

Keywords

• central retinal artery occlusion
• giant-cell arteritis
• vasculitis