The Collaborative Ocular Tuberculosis Study (COTS)-1: A Multinational Review of 165 Patients with Tubercular Anterior Uveitis

1

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The Collaborative Ocular Tuberculosis Study (COTS) Group sought to address the diagnostic uncertainty through retrospective cohort analysis of treatment regimens and therapeutic outcomes for patients with tubercular Anterior Uveitis (TAU) across international centers.

Methods: Multicentre retrospective analysis of patients diagnosed with TAU between January 2004 to December 2014 that had a minimum follow-up of 1 year.

Results: One hundred and sixty-five patients were included. One hundred and seven subjects received antitubercular therapy (ATT) (n = 107/165; 64.9%) with all the patients receiving topical steroid therapy. Treatment failure was noted in 17 patients (n = 17/165; 10.3%), more frequently described in patients that received ATT (n = 13/107, 12.2%), than those that did not receive ATT (n = 4/58, 6.9%).

Conclusion: In this retrospective study, addition of ATT did not have any statistically significant impact on outcome in patients with TAU.

KEYWORDS:

• Anti-tubercular therapy
• tubercular anterior uveitis
• ocular tuberculosis
• uveitis
• collaborative ocular tuberculosis study (COTS)

Acknowledgments

The research was partially funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology. This sponsor supported some of the research man-hours that were contributed by all our part-time collaborators from the Moorfields Eye Hospital that are salaried as Ophthalmology clinicians by the hospital. Debra A. Goldstein is supported by an unrestricted grant from Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB). Vishali Gupta is supported by grant from Department of Biotechnology (DBT), India. Julio J GONZÁLEZ-LÓPEZ² is supported by study grants from Abbvie, Allergan, and Angelini. Funders played no part in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; nor the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. Rupesh AGRAWAL, Dinesh Visva GUNASEKERAN, and Dhananjay RAJE had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest, financial or non-financial, in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript. Prof Kempen is consultant for Gilead (DSMC chair) and also equity owner for Betaliq. The work was supported by NIHR biomedical research, UK. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.