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Uveitic specialists can learn from rheumatoid specialists, use steroid-sparing methods from beginning
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ATLANTA — Uveitic specialists can learn from rheumatoid specialists to avoid steroids in early treatment so as to avoid toxicity and side effects, an expert said here.
"Nothing puts the fire out as quickly as steroids, but they always produce trouble if used chronically or repeatedly," C. Stephen Foster, MD, said during Uveitis Subspecialty Day preceding the American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting.
Dr. Foster is a proponent of using immunomodulatory therapy (IMT) before steroids for superior results with less complications and damage to the eye, something he said rheumatology specialists learned "the hard way."
"We should, in fact, embrace this model of early steroid-sparing, remission-inducing therapy with even more vigor than does rheumatology, since the eye is so much less forgiving of chronic inflammation than is the joint, with profound life-altering consequences," he said. "The mission is remission."