Retinal artery occlusion in young patients without typical cardiovascular risk factors: etiologies, prognosis, and suggested work-up.

The most common identifiable etiologies of RAO in young patients with low cardiovascular risk are structural/functional cardiac abnormalities and vasculitides, with a small range of additional causes/associations accounting for remaining cases. We suggest a focused work-up algorithm to rapidly identify etiologies in this group while minimizing unnecessary testing. The long-term risk of systemic or ocular secondary events in these patients is low regardless of the etiology of their RAO.