Unilateral optic neuropathy associated with sildenafil intake

Anterior ischemic optic neuropathy and stroke with use of PDE-5 inhibitors for erectile dysfunction: Cause or coincidence?

“…Through 2005 there were 10 reports in the scientific literature proposing an association between the use of sildenafil or tadalafil and the occurrence of NAION in 20 patients [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]53]. Clinical details of these cases are presented in Table 1.…”

“…Escaravage's case [5], besides occurring 45 h after ingestion of tadalafil, was a patient who took the medication the evening of the day after a laparoscopic prostatectomy when his hematocrit was less than 30%. The patient reported by Gruhn and Fledelius [7] had been experiencing vague visual symptoms in the suspect eye half a day prior to drug ingestion. This may very well have been the onset of his NAION; if so the process was underway when he used sildenafil.…”

“…By that time there had been fourteen case reports in the medical literature [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Since then the question of whether or not PDE-5 inhibitors are responsible for NAION has been the subject of editorials and reviews attempting to clarify the situation with mixed success.…”

Phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors, visual changes, and nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy: Is there a link?

“…Furthermore, five cases have been reported in Canada [9]. There are 17 NAION case reports published in association with sildenafil and three in association with tadalafil (Tables 2-4) [7,20,[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55]. A few of the cases associated with sildenafil and one case associated with tadalafil experienced temporary partial visual loss that became a fixed visual loss upon rechallenging.…”

Nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy with PDE-5 inhibitors for erectile dysfunction

“…[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] Most of the evidence suggesting an association between NAION and use of PDE-5 inhibitors is from case reports or series published since 2000. A causative link has been proposed on the basis that the visual loss developed, in most of these cases, within 24 h of ingesting a PDE-5 inhibitor.…”