Patterns of Non-Infectious Scleritis across a Tertiary Eye Care Network Using the Indigenously Developed Electronic Medical Record System-eyeSmart

ABSTRACT

Purpose

To report the pattern of noninfectious scleritis across a tertiary eye-care network.

Methods

A three-year retrospective review of patients diagnosed with noninfectious scleritis was performed. Data were retrieved using diagnostic terms assigned to scleritis through the in-house eyeSmart-electronic medical record system.

Results

1103 patients, with a mean age of 44.33 ± 14.38 years and a median follow-up of 199.5 days (range 32–685) were enrolled. Unilateral disease was noted in 85%. Diffuse anterior scleritis (n = 542, 42.51%) and nodular scleritis (n = 482, 38.12%) were the commonest subtypes. Systemic immune disease association was present in 65 (5.89%). Treatment at onset was topical corticosteroids (n = 372, 36.54%) followed by oral non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (n = 351, 34.45%), oral corticosteroids in 184 (19.04%), and immunomodulators in 32 patients (3.54%).

Conclusions

This study depicts the pattern of various noninfectious scleritis in a large cohort of patients. The present study helped to further customize the electronic medical records to minimize several data capture limitations.

KEYWORDS:

• Scleritis
• diffuse and nodular
• electronic medical records
• big data
• eyeSmart

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of our eyeSmart EMR team Mr. Pasha, Mr. Ranganath Vadapalli, Mr. Yasaswi Leela Ram, and Mrs. Sabera Banu for the references. We acknowledge the help of Professor Javed M Ali in the review and editing of this manuscript.

Declaration of interest

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

Additional information

Funding

Hyderabad Eye Research Foundation, Hyderabad, Telangana, India.