Prevalence of Epstein–Barr Virus in Patients with Intraocular Inflammation

ABSTRACT

The relationship between Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) infection and uveitis is unclear. We conducted an observational cross-sectional study to determine the prevalence of EBV in uveitis and to describe the clinical features of EBV-positive uveitis cases. This study was carried out at the F.I. Proctor Foundation at the University of California, San Francisco. All patients with suspected infectious uveitis who underwent unbiased metagenomic deep sequencing (MDS) were included. Demographics, testing information, and clinical features were documented. Eleven out of 288 patients with suspected infectious uveitis had EBV detected by RNA-seq in intraocular fluid. The prevalence of EBV in uveitis in our study sample is 4%. Three out of 11 EBV-positive eyes (27%) were found to have biopsy-proven vitreoretinal lymphoma. Future studies are needed to determine if EBV may drive the development of vitreoretinal lymphoma and if its presence should heighten the suspicion of vitreoretinal lymphoma.

KEYWORDS:

• Intraocular lymphoma
• molecular diagnostics
• ocular inflammation
• ocular inflammation
• uveitis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was made possible, in part, by NIH-NEI EY002162 – Core Grant for Vision Research, Research to Prevent Blindness Unrestricted Grant, and K08EY026986 to Thuy Doan, MD, PhD.