Epidemiological, Clinical, and Therapeutic Profile of Uveitis in Multiple Sclerosis: A Multicenter Study

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Uveitis may occur during approximately 1–3% of MS patients, corresponding to 10 times higher than in the general population. The development of uveitis is not currently considered as an inflammatory relapse of MS. There are no clinical guidelines for treating. MS with concomitant uveitis requiring systemic treatment.

Purposes

To analyze clinical and therapeutic characteristics of uveitis in patients with MS and the impact of MS treatment on the progression of uveitis.

Materials & Methods

We conducted a retrospective, observational, multicenter study in France about 54 patients.

Results

The form of MS most frequently associated with uveitis in our study was the relapsing-remitting form (85%). The mean time of onset of uveitis was 15 months before the diagnosis of MS. The most frequent form of uveitis was bilateral panuveitis (43%), non-granulomatous (61%), synechial (52%) and non-hypertonic (93%) with progressive onset (65%) and chronic course (66%).

Conclusion

MS-associated uveitis occurs most frequently before the diagnosis of relapsing-remitting MS in the form of panuveitis or intermediate uveitis, which is mildly inflammatory and whose main complications are macular edema, cataract and venous vasculitis. Despite their chronicity, these uveitis cases have a good visual prognosis and teriflunomide appears to have a positive effect on progression.

KEYWORDS:

• Macular edema
• multiple-sclerosis
• uveitis
• vasculitis

Acknowledgments

This article was the subject of Ruben Fitoussi’s thesis, but it has not yet been published to date.

To my dear co-authors, a heartfelt thank you for your invaluable contribution.

Disclosure statement

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

Ethics approval statement

Has been approved by the Ethics Committee of the French Society of Ophthalmology (IRB 00008855 Société Française d’Ophtalmologie) because the Committee did not find any challenge against the medical and scientific rules of ethics, as accepted in France.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.