This disease is regarded as one of the most terrifying acute emergencies in ophthalmology, with very limited medical means to treat it.
By comparing the treatment plan for myocardial infarction to RAO, the treatment methods and prognosis for RAO don't emphasize the golden rescue time like cataracts and other eye diseases. Similar to heart attack treatment, it's crucial to seize the limited rescue window; once the timing is missed, the prognosis is unimaginable, worse than a heart attack.
The reason is that the diameter of the retinal arteries is much smaller than the coronary arteries, and humans have not yet broken through material limits to stent such tiny obstructed vessels as in heart attack treatment. If only relying on thrombolytic drugs for treatment, the emboli causing RAO may not just be ordinary thrombi but can be fat, tumor, calcification emboli, or drug emboli of various types, which may not respond to thrombolytic medications.
