Antioxidant agent in the treatment of Grave’ ophthalmopathy

PURPOE: To report the effect of antioxidant agent in the treatment of mild and moderately evere Grave’ ophthalmopathy. METHOD: Propective, nonrandomized, comparative tudy performed at a referral center. A erie of 11 patient with mild or moderately evere, active, newly diagnoed Grave’ ophthalmopathy were included in the tudy. Allopurinol (300 mg daily) orally and nicotinamide (300 mg daily) orally were ued for 3 month. A complete ophthalmologic examination wa performed before and 1 and 3 month after initiation of treatment. The repone to treatment wa etimated eparately for each component of the dieae and overall by it effect on a total eye core. Eleven patient with mild or moderately evere, active, newly diagnoed Grave’ ophthalmopathy who received placebo were alo examined at the ame time point. Patient in each group were recruited conecutively. Although nonmoking wa not an excluion criterion, all patient were cigarette moker. REULT: Nine (82%) of 11 patient treated with oral antioxidant howed improvement of mild to moderately evere Grave’ ophthalmopathy veru three (27%) of 11 patient in the control group (P < .05). oft tiue inflammation wa the component of the dieae that reponded more to treatment. No ide effect of antioxidant treatment were recorded. Patient’ atifaction wa high. CONCLUION: Thi pilot tudy preent encouraging reult in the treatment of mild and moderately evere Grave’ ophthalmopathy with antioxidant agent. To evaluate thee preliminary reult, randomized propec-tive tudie are needed