Current Practices in Ocular Tuberculosis: A Survey of Brazilian Specialists

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To describe the approach of Brazilian specialists in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis-associated uveitis (TBU).

Methods: Members of the Brazilian Uveitis Society received an electronic invitation to participate in an online questionnaire.

Results: Of the 169 invited specialists, 78 answered the questionnaire. Specialists evaluated 5.6 patients with TBU annually. Tuberculin skin test (TST, 81%) was primarily used for diagnosis. Patients with presumed TBU should always be tested for syphilis and HIV according to 51 (88%) and 47 (81%) of respondents, respectively. Chest computed tomography (CT, 72%) was preferable to chest radiography (CXR) for diagnosis. A positive TST (81%) and CXR (60%) were the main indicators of anti-tuberculous therapy, with 34%, 39%, and 14% of specialists treating for 6, 9, and 12 months, respectively.

Conclusions: TST remains the preferred method for TBU diagnosis and prompt treatment by Brazilian specialists, though there is no consensus regarding disease treatment and management.

Keywords:

• Anti-tuberculous therapy
• Brazilian survey
• interferon-gamma release assay
• tuberculosis
• tuberculin skin test
• tuberculosis-associated uveitis

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, Brazil) under Grant 401096/2014 (2015-2018). RPC-M was supported as a Special Visiting Researcher by the program “Science Without Frontiers” from CNPq under Grant 401096/2014-9. YF-Z was granted in part by the “Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES)” under Finance Code 001.