Clinical Features, Long-Term Outcomes, and Prognostic Factors of Eales’ Disease in Korean Patients

ABSTRACT

Purpose

We studied Korean patients with Eales' disease to document clinical features, long-term outcomes, and explore its association with TB, given South Korea's high TB burden.

Methods

We retrospectively reviewed medical records of Eales' disease patients for clinical characteristics, long-term outcomes, and its association with TB.

Results

Among 106 eyes, the average age of diagnosis was 39.28 years, with 82.7% male and 58.7% having unilateral involvement. Patients who underwent vitrectomy showed greater long-term improvement in visual acuity (P = .047), while those with glaucoma filtration surgery showed less improvement (P = .008). Having glaucoma through disease progression was associated with poor visual outcomes (odds ratio=15.556, P < .02). 27 out of 39 patients (69.23%) who underwent IGRA screening tested positive for TB.

Conclusions

In Korean patients with Eales’ disease, we observed male predominance, unilateral presentation, older age of onset, and a link with TB. Timely diagnosis and management should be considered to maintain good vision in patients with Eales’ disease.

KEYWORDS:

• Korea
• retinal vasculitis
• tuberculosis
• vitreous hemorrhage

Author contributions

Seung Min Lee: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing Jae Hoon Jung: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation Junwon Lee: Data curation, Methodology Eun Young Choi: Data curation, Methodology Joo Youn Shin: Data curation, Methodology Min Kim: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.

Ethical approval

This study was conducted in accordance with the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Gangnam Severance Hospital (IRB approval number: 3-2021-0457). The informed consent requirement was waived by the Gangnam Severance Hospital Institutional Review Board (IRB approval number: 3-2021-0457).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data sharing

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by the Bumsuk Academic Scholar Foundation Research Assistance Program (2020-31-1196)