The Pattern of Uveitis in a Pediatric Population at a Tertiary Center in Thailand

ABSTRACT

Purpose

To describe the clinical characteristics and longitudinal pattern of visual acuity (VA) of pediatric patients with uveitis at a tertiary center in Thailand.

Methods

We retrospectively reviewed the records of children with uveitis ≤16 years who presented to the clinic between January 2010 and June 2020.

Results

The mean age at onset was 9.1(±4.3) years; the main characteristics were chronic (64.4%), unilateral (68.6%), and panuveitis (39%). The common etiologies were ocular toxoplasmosis (11.9%), herpetic uveitis (10.2%), and ocular toxocariasis (6.8%). Further, 40% of the eyes presented with VA of ≤20/200; mean VA at baseline improved from 0.93 to 0.72 logMAR at 3 months after presentation (P < .001), the baseline VA of ≤20/200 was significantly associated with poor VA outcome at 1 year.

Conclusion

Chronic, unilateral, and panuveitis represented the majority of our children with uveitis. Infectious etiology was common. Significant VA improvement can be achieved with optimum management.

KEYWORDS:

• Childhood uveitis
• children
• characteristics
• epidemiology
• pediatric uveitis
• visual outcomes
• Thailand

Acknowledgments

We gratefully thank Dr. Alan Geater (Epidemiology Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University) for guiding and suggesting the statistical methods. We also thank Ms. Parichat Damthongsuk and Ms. Walailuk Jitpiboon for their assistance with data analysis.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Data availability

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

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.