Uveitis-Related Inflammatory Diseases Identified

March 20, 2001

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WESTPORT, CT (Reuters Health) Mar 19 - Inflammatory rheumatic diseases and other

comparable conditions often appear to be important causes of severe uveitis,

which leads to visual handicap and blindness.

Using data from the Finnish Register of Visual Impairment, Dr. Kaisu Kotaniemi

from the Rheumatism Foundation Hospital in Heinola and colleagues

retrospectively identified 174 uveitis patients whose visual handicap began

between 1980 and 1996.

Analysis of the data showed that 22% of these patients had been diagnosed with

an inflammatory rheumatic disease or comparable condition. Specifically, 8% were

diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, 6% with spondyloarthropathy, 3%

with sarcoidosis, 2% with seronegative rheumatoid arthritis and 1% with Behcet's

disease.

In addition, 6% of the subjects had chronic back pain and 3% had other

noninflammatory joint conditions.

Twenty-two percent of the uveitis patients also had other ophthalmologic or

systemic conditions. Trauma or surgery was responsible for the uveitis in

another 5% of patients, according to the report in the February issue of the

Journal of Rheumatology.

For 43% of the patients in the cohort, no other specific condition associated

with uveitis was identified.

Among the 174 uveitis patients, 65 were legally blind, including 8 patients who

were totally blind, Dr. Kotaniemi and colleagues note.

" Most of the uveitis patients included in the present series represented

treatment failures from a period prior to 1980, " the researchers comment.

However, despite improved treatment since that time " the importance of etiologic

examination of uveitis patients cannot be overestimated and it is obvious that a

continuous monitoring of the Finnish Register for Visual Impairment has yet to

show marked changes in the etiology of blindness. "

J Rheumatol 2001;28:309-312.

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