Endoscopic surgery to activate the optic nerve

  Ms. Ye, a 43-year-old woman, suddenly lost her vision in her left eye for 15 days due to visual carditis. Recently, we performed an endoscopic decompression of the visual center, and the patient’s left eye was able to see again, and her visual acuity has now reached 0.1 and is in the process of further recovery. According to a search, this procedure is rarely reported in China and abroad for the treatment of visual carditis.  If the eye is compared to a light bulb, the visual center is equivalent to the wire that connects the light bulb. The visual center is critical to the visual function of the eye and is responsible for the transmission of signals between the eye and the forebrain. Once the visual center is diseased or damaged, vision can be significantly reduced or even blinded, even if the rest of the eye is intact. Visual carditis is one of the most common diseases that cause damage to the visual center, mostly associated with cranial multiple sclerosis and demyelinating diseases. There is no effective treatment yet, and most of them are treated with high-dose hormone shock, nerve nutrition and other conservative treatments, but the effect is not ideal.  The patient was diagnosed as having left posterior bulbar visual centeritis according to the specific history and clinical examination, but the specific cause was unclear, and no abnormal lesions were found on MRI and other examinations. The cause of visual acuity loss due to visual carditis is complex. In addition to the direct damage caused by inflammation, the increased pressure in the canal of the visual center caused by inflammation and the resulting ischemia and hypoxia in the visual center are probably the most critical factors in the dysfunction of the visual center.  The mechanism of endoscopic visual canal decompression treatment most likely lies in the removal of the bony canal around the visual canal and the incision of the three layers of the sheath enveloping the visual canal, so as to effectively relieve the high pressure in the visual canal, improve the visual canal microcirculation, and promote the repair of the visual canal function. At the same time, the nerve growth factor and hormone are accurately applied to the visual canal incision site under the endoscope after the surgery, soaking the visual center in a highly concentrated drug environment, which is more conducive to the damage repair of the visual center.  The visual center is very delicate and fragile. Previously, it was thought that the visual center could not be repaired once it was damaged, and that it could not be improved by replacement, unlike the cornea and crystalloid. The vast majority of physicians and patients with this type of visual center damage choose to abandon treatment. To see again after 15 days of pure loss of light perception and with vision steadily recovering cannot be considered a miracle. We are currently exploring this technique to repair the visual center from scratch, triggering its functional reconstruction, which was previously thought to be impossible to recover.