Smoking and damages of the optical nerve

Kountouris Dimitiris¹ ,Drossos Theofanis ²

¹Neurological Medical center, Michalakopoulou 45, Athens, Greece

² Hospital Pammakaristos, Department of internal Medicine, Iakovaton 43, Athens, Greece

The purpose of this study is to present the influence of smoking on the optical nerve according to the changes that appeared during the examination of visual evoced potential.

Sample-Methods: Was examined 70 healthy people, 40 men and 30 women aged between 28-52 years, M:39,5+_ 8.2 smokers over 5 years with the method of the visual evoced potential (VEP)

The results were compared with those from a team with healthy non smokers of the same age and sex. The statistical comparison shows a high significant difference between smoking and non smoking people (p<0.01).

Smokers were observed to present prolonged latencies as well as decreased shapes of visual evoced potentials.

Generally the results support the opinion that in chronic smokers, an increased vulnerability of the optical nerve is observed.

Abstract were published in the ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAFY and CLINICAL NEUROPHYSIOLOGY, ELSEVIER 1997:103(1)

paper presented at the 14^th International Congress of EEG and Clinical Neurophysiology, Florence, Italy, August 24-29,1997.