Given that optic atrophy occurs due to nerve degeneration, its treatment options are limited similar to other neurological conditions. Once the original cause of damage causes the optic nerves to atrophy, the damage is usually irreversible and doesn’t respond to conventional treatments.  Therefore, current treatment usually focuses on reducing/removing the insult damaging the retina or optic nerve prior to entering the stage of actual optic atrophy. Such treatments include (1, 2, 4-6):

• Corticosteroids: Steroids are strong anti-inflammatory drugs that might reduce the optic nerve or retinal inflammation occurring due to trauma or tumors.
•  Lifestyle modifications: These include adopting a healthy diet, exercising, smoking and alcohol cessation…etc.
• Anti-VEGF drugs and other anti-angiogenic drugs: These drugs are beneficial only in one type of macular/retinal degeneration known as “wet age-related macular degeneration” which occurs due to overproduction of “defective” blood vessels within the retina. Therefore suppressing the production of these blood vessels delays the retinal degeneration rate and the development of blindness. There are currently three approved anti-VEGF drugs for this use; namely ranibizumab, aflibercept, and brolucizumab. However, these drugs require prolonged, and maybe life-long, intraocular (within the eye) injections at close intervals; which might be inconvenient for many patients – especially given that it is merely a way to delay the disease progression and not a permanent curative treatment.
• Photodynamic therapy (Using Verteporfin dye): This treatment is also used in wet AMD to slow the progression of the disease by targeting the abnormal blood vessels within the retina. However, this therapy doesn’t improve visual outcomes and it simply delays disease progression.

As you can see, treatment options are limited, and none of the mentioned treatments address the issue of retinal and/or optic nerve atrophy. Current treatments only aim to reduce the damage and/or delay disease progression. This is where stem cell therapy has been emerging in the past few years as a possible hope for the treatment of retinal degeneration and/or optic nerve atrophy after its success in improving a multitude of other neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy and autism.