Amaurosis – Transient Monocular Blindness

Amaurosis refers to an acute loss of vision in one eye, whether temporary or permanent.
It is a dramatic event that usually occurs non-isolated, that is: there may be warning signs in which the patient has decreased vision, goes to the ophthalmologist and reports a decrease in vision and an absence of vision, a part of the visual field or of an entire eye, which lasted for 5/10 minutes or even half an hour.
These transient amaurotic phenomena are practically moments in which the eye no longer sees anything, the patient sees completely black. They are usually associated with vascular phenomena; it means that a small blood clot started from the vascular system, ended up in the central artery of the retina and occluded the latter temporarily.
In this case, the retina becomes a tissue that has a terminal vascularization (i.e. without collateral circulation or blocked network of tiny blood vessels). The blood does not arrive because it does not have a collateral circulation through which to pass downstream of that vessel, of that small artery which is as big as a hair strand. The phenomenon then that the patient perceives is that of no longer having vision.
This is a very serious phenomenon. The patient must go to the ophthalmologist to report it and undergo tests to rule out that there are no problems inside the eye. The ophthalmologist must also then refer the patient to general medicine specialists, internal medicine and above all cardiologists and internists, to understand what was the “primum movens” that created this decrease in blood circulation within the eyeball.
Embolus usually starts from the heart and may be due to, for example, atrial fibrillation; therefore the patient must be sent to the cardiologist. The cardiologist must carry out all the tests he deems appropriate and then it is possible that an antiplatelet or anticoagulant therapy, support and maintenance is established.