Comparison of the Effect of Clemestine and Placebo after Intravenous Corticosteroids in the Treatment of Acute Optic Neuritis

Introduction: Acute optic neuritis is a demyelinating disease of optic nerve and the most common optic neuropathy that affects young adults. Clemastine is a common antihistamine and it plays a main role in restoring the myelin membrane and increase the differentiation of oligodendrocytes. Methods: In current clinical trial, 30 patients aged 15-50 years with acute optic neuritis were randomly divided into two groups of case and control. The case group was treated with Clemastine for three months and the control group was given a placebo for three months. Visual acuity, color vision, and p100 latency were examined and compared in both groups before and 3 months after the treatment. Results: The mean color vision after treatment in the case (19.86 ± 0.51) and placebo (19.46 ±1.12) groups showed no statistically significant differences (p 0.05). Also, the mean visual acuity in the case (0.98 ± 0.056) and placebo (0.94 ± 0.091) groups after receiving medicine showed no statistically significant differences (p 0.05). The mean of the p100 latency of evoked potential in the case (115.80 ± 13.25) and placebo groups (124.12 ± 7.88) after receiving treatments showed a meaningful difference statistically (p 0.05). Conclusion: The use of Clemastine for reduction of the chronic complications of the optic neuritis could be considered in the outline.