Childhood Chronic Idiopathic Uveitis in a Multicentre International Cohort

ABSTRACT

Importance

Idiopathic uveitis makes up around 50% of non-infectious uveitis but the clinical characteristics in children are poorly understood.

Objective

To report the demographic, clinical characteristics, and outcomes of children with idiopathic non-infectious uveitis (iNIU) in a multicentric retrospective study. 

Results

There were 126 (61 female) children with iNIU. The median age at diagnosis was 9.3 years (3–16 years) . Uveitis was bilateral in 106 patients and anterior in 68.At onset,impaired visual acuity and blindness in the worse eye were reported, in 24.4% and 15.1% patients but at 3 years of follow-up, there was a significant improvement in visual acuity (mean 0.11 SD ±0.50 vs 0.42 SD ± 0.59 p < .001).

Conclusions and relevance

There is a high rate of visual impairment at presentation in children with idiopathic uveitis. The majority of patients have a significant improvement in vision, but 1 in 6 had impaired vision or blindness in their worse eye at 3 years.

KEY POINTS

• This is a large retrospective study of children with chronic idiopathic uveitis,

• There is a high rate of visual impairment at presentation in children with idiopathic uveitis. Although visual acuity improves during follow-up, one in six still had impaired vision or blindness in their worse eye at 3 years.

• At 3 years, more than half of patients were on immunosuppression and one-third were on a biologic agent

KEYWORDS:

• Children
• idiopathic
• measures of outcome
• uveitis

Disclosure statement

CG received fees for consultations from Eli Lilly and Company. AVR received fees for consultations from AbbVie, Eli Lilly, UCB and Alimera; Speaker fee: AbbVie, Roche, UCB, Lilly, Novartis, and SOBI.

Data availability statement

Data will be available upon reasonable request.