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Diagnosed With Cortical Blindness In Both Eyes. Had Treatment For Kidney And Lung Cancer. Using Sutent And Nexavar
Question: My father of 75 went 99% blind in both eyes over 12 months (can only see vague shadowy shapes), following two years treatment for kidney and lung cancer, using the drugs Sutent (for one year) and Nexavar (1 year). Tests confirm that the eyes ate fie, so it appears that he suffers from cortical blindness. Is there any treatment you can suggest to attempt to reverse the blindness.
HelloXXXXXX
It will be important that I should first of all present you with some literature before you can decide from where to go to. The prognosis of a patient with acquired cortical blindness depends largely on the original cause of the blindness. For instance, patients with bilateral occipital lesions have a much lower chance of recovering vision than patients who suffered a transient ischemic attack or women who experienced complications associated with eclampsia. In patients with acquired cortical blindness, a permanent complete loss of vision is rare. The development of cortical blindness into the milder
cortical visual impairment is a more likely outcome.
Furthermore, some patients regain vision completely, as is the case with transient cortical blindness associated with eclampsia and the side effects of certain anti-epilepsy drugs.
Recent research on the relearning of complex visual motion following V1 damage has offered potentially promising treatments
for individuals with acquired cortical blindness.
These treatments focus on retraining and retuning certain intact pathways of the visual cortex which are more or less preserved in individuals who sustained damage to V1. They found that specific
training focused on utilizing the "blind field" of individuals who had sustained v1 damage improved the patients ability to perceive simple and complex visual motion. This sort of 'relearning' therapy may provide a good workaround for patients with acquired cortical blindness in order to better make sense of the visual environment.
Well you will need to get a hold of an ophthalmologist to look into your father's situation to see if correctable.
Sincerely
Dr. Nsah
It will be important that I should first of all present you with some literature before you can decide from where to go to. The prognosis of a patient with acquired cortical blindness depends largely on the original cause of the blindness. For instance, patients with bilateral occipital lesions have a much lower chance of recovering vision than patients who suffered a transient ischemic attack or women who experienced complications associated with eclampsia. In patients with acquired cortical blindness, a permanent complete loss of vision is rare. The development of cortical blindness into the milder
cortical visual impairment is a more likely outcome.
Furthermore, some patients regain vision completely, as is the case with transient cortical blindness associated with eclampsia and the side effects of certain anti-epilepsy drugs.
Recent research on the relearning of complex visual motion following V1 damage has offered potentially promising treatments
for individuals with acquired cortical blindness.
These treatments focus on retraining and retuning certain intact pathways of the visual cortex which are more or less preserved in individuals who sustained damage to V1. They found that specific
training focused on utilizing the "blind field" of individuals who had sustained v1 damage improved the patients ability to perceive simple and complex visual motion. This sort of 'relearning' therapy may provide a good workaround for patients with acquired cortical blindness in order to better make sense of the visual environment.
Well you will need to get a hold of an ophthalmologist to look into your father's situation to see if correctable.
Sincerely
Dr. Nsah
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Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
Answered by
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