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Pediatric uveitis often chronic, related to systemic disease
Uveitis in children is potentially blinding and is characterized in a majority of patients by a chronic course and high complication rate, according to a study.
Joke de Boer and colleagues at the FC Donders Institute of Ophthalmology in the Netherlands retrospectively studied 123 patients with uveitis and onset of ocular disease before the age of 16. Systemic disease was observed in 36 patients. Toxoplasma retinochoroiditis was diagnosed in 12 of 23 patients with posterior uveitis. Systemic drugs were required for 57 patients with severe intraocular inflammation. Ocular complications occurred in 93 patients, and intraocular surgery was required in 35 patients. In total, 23 patients became legally blind in at least one eye as a result of the uveitis.
The study is published in the July issue of British Journal of Ophthalmology.