Amaurosis Fugax

Synonyms

Transient monocular visual loss

Definition

Amaurosis fugax (from the Greek amauros, meaning dark or obscure, and fugax, meaning fleeting) is a subtype of transient monocular visual loss attributed to ischemia or vascular insufficiency. Typically, patients describe a painless, diminished, or absent vision in one eye that lasts few minutes, followed by complete recovery. Patients often depict the loss of vision as a shade or curtain that obscures vision in one eye; vision loss may be altitudinal, central, or peripheral (1990).

Most episodes of transient monocular visual loss last 2–20 min and then resolve spontaneously. The North American Symptomatic Carotid Endarterectomy Trial (NASCET) found that the duration of the episodes ranged from 15 s to 23 h, with a median duration of 4 min (Ritter and Tyrrell 2013).

Rarely, patients with amaurosis fugax will complain of transient monocular blindness after exposure to bright light, these patients presenting an inability of borderline...