Need for Visual Pathway Examination of the Patient Prior to Bone Marrow Transplantation

Author(s): Maryam Naser, Seyed Mohammad Masoud Shushtarian

Abstract

Aim: Bone Marrow Transplantation is a treatment procedure usually applied for the patients suffering from leukemia. It is observed that some of these patients complain from partial vision loss few months after the operation whereas the routine visual examination of these patients are normal, therefore the aim of present work is to examine the visual pathway of these patients to search for the probable visual pathway degeneration of these patients using visual evoked potential (VEP).

Method: 10 patients following bone marrow transplantation were selected randomly. These patients had this operation for at least one year before. Routine ophthalmological examination of them was normal or at most they had refractive error problem which could be corrected by suitable spectacles. Visual evoked potential was recorded in these patients. Latency (msec) and amplitude (μv) of VEP, P100 Peak was noted for each patient. Beside these patients, 10 people with healthy visual system were selected to compare the result of VEP in patients with healthy group following VEP recording.

Result: It is observed that 4 patients had abnormal VEP pattern which was reflected either in latency or amplitude of VEP, P100 Peak.

Conclusion: From the result of present work, one can conclude that VEP examination of patients following bone marrow transplantation is necessary prior to operation so that if any unexplained visual loss is observed after operation, the medical staff can follow the case for the probable reason for this malfunction.