Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy in Older Individuals Because of Increased Alcohol Consumption During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Zaslavsky, Kirill; Margolin, Edward A

BACKGROUND Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) is a disorder affecting oxidative phosphorylation in mitochondria. A majority of affected patients are men of 15 to 35 years of age. Phenotypic penetrance of this condition is only 50% in man and 10% in women and increases if the cellular energy demands go up, with the most common risk factors being smoking and alcohol use. METHODS Review of clinical features of 3 patients who were diagnosed with LHON in their sixth decade of life after doubling their alcohol intake during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS All 3 patients were older than the age of 50 when they developed severe sequential visual loss. All have at least doubled their alcohol intake for at least 4 weeks preceding visual loss, and 2 who were smokers increased the number of cigarettes consumed daily because of the stress and boredom during the lockdowns triggered by the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS Significant increase in substance abuse in the general population during the recent lockdowns to combat the COVID-19 pandemic is well documented. We report 3 patients older than the age of 50, one of them a woman, who developed severe bilateral visual loss due to LHON after doubling their alcohol consumption and increasing number of cigarettes smoked daily during the pandemic. Clinicians are reminded to consider LHON in the differential diagnosis when encountering older patients with bilateral sequential visual loss and to specifically inquire about alcohol use and cigarette smoking in these patients.