AI Article Synopsis

  • Acute pancreatitis is an inflammatory disorder of the pancreas that can lead to multi-organ dysfunction and has systemic inflammatory effects, and rare complications like optic neuropathy can occur, particularly in cases related to alcohol use.
  • A case study of a 51-year-old woman with severe abdominal pain revealed moderate to severe acute pancreatitis and subsequent left optic neuropathy, presenting as peri-orbital pain, lacrimation, and blurry vision after 11 days of illness.
  • Upon diagnosis, high-dose oral steroids were administered, leading to significant improvement in her symptoms and optic disc oedema over follow-up periods, highlighting the need to recognize optic neuropathy as a potential complication of acute pancreatitis.

Article Abstract

Acute pancreatitis is a pancreatic inflammatory disorder that often leads to multi-organ dysfunction associated with systemic inflammatory response. Optic neuropathy is an extremely rare ocular manifestation that can occur especially in alcoholic pancreatitis most likely due to ischemic complications and is a vision-threatening condition that has to be recognized early as it can cause permanent vision loss. In this case report, a 51-year-old lady, an occasional consumer of alcohol, post-cholecystectomy status, presented with severe abdominal pain of four days' duration associated with multiple episodes of vomiting. She was diagnosed with moderate to severe acute pancreatitis and needed ionotropic support initially. She had improvement in gastrointestinal symptoms. However, she had left peri-orbital pain and lacrimation with blurring of vision on Day 11 of illness. Subsequently, an ophthalmic evaluation revealed optic disc oedema and a mild decrease in visual acuity but normal visual field and colour vision. Therefore, left optic neuropathy was diagnosed and a high-dose oral steroid was started on a tapering dose. Follow-ups after four and 12 weeks showed significant improvement in optic disc oedema and other symptoms. Therefore, though optic neuropathy is rarely reported in acute pancreatitis, it has to be considered in clinical practice along with Purtscher-like retinopathy, which presents with ocular symptoms in acute pancreatitis.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10944141PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.54234DOI Listing

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