Race Distribution in Nonarteritic Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy

Purpose: To describe the racial distribution of patients diagnosed with nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION) in 2 large urban academic centers in the United States. Design: Retrospective cross-sectional study. Methods: All patients with NAION evaluated between 2014 and 2022 in tertiary neuro-ophthalmology services in Atlanta, GA, and New York, NY, respectively, were included. In order to assess the racial accessibility to our services, similar numbers of patients with idiopathic intracranial hypertension seen in the same services were included. Self-reported race at the time of neuro-ophthalmologic examination was collected for all patients. Results were compared with data published by the US Bureau of Census for Decennial Census in 2020 for the states of Georgia and New York, and for the total population of the United States. Results: In both locations, the vast majority of patients with NAION reported being White (91.06% in Atlanta and 78.9% in New York). Only 7.27% of patients in Atlanta and 3% in New York reported being Black, and 1.24% of patients in Atlanta and 5.9% in New York reported being Asian. There were a much higher proportion of White people among NAION patients than in the group of patients with idiopathic intracranial hypertension and in each respective state and in the United States. Conclusions: Our results show that the majority of patients with NAION are White, followed by Black and Asian races, respectively, thus confirming the NAION race distribution reported by past clinical trials.