Treatment of temporal arteritis with ocular involvement.

A 78-year-old white woman had catastrophic visual loss in one eye due to temporal arteritis. Despite treatment with doses of oral corticosteroids high enough to normalize the Westergren erythrocyte sedimentation rate, she experienced progressive retinal ischemia with visual loss in the second eye. The use of 1,000 mg of pulsed intravenous methylprednisolone every 12 hours restored her vision. Brief hospitalization of patients with arteritic ischemic optic neuropathy for treatment with intravenous methylprednisolone may offer a significant chance of visual recovery of the involved eye and provide optimal protection to the uninvolved eye.