Efficacy and Safety of Adalimumab for Exacerbation or Relapse of Ocular Inflammation in Patients with Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada Disease: A Multicenter Study

ABSTRACT

Purpose

We investigated efficacy and safety of adalimumab (ADA) treatment for exacerbation or recurrence of Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada (VKH) patients.

Methods

Medical records of 70 VKH patients who received ADA treatment for more than 6 months were retrospectively investigated.

Results

The mean age of VKH patients was 54.8 ± 15.1 years, and male/female ratio was 34/36, and sunset glow fundus was observed in 71.4%. Subfoveal choroidal thickness, indocyanine green angiography scores, and corticosteroid and cyclosporine doses were significantly reduced by ADA treatment for 6 months compared to baseline, while LogMAR and flare counts were also improved without being statistically significant. Adverse events were observed in 17.1%, in which tuberculosis was at 7.14% and psoriasis was at 2.86%; however, ADA treatment was continued in 91.4%.

Conclusions

ADA was shown to be effective to achieve remission of VKH disease refractory to conventional treatments and was generally well tolerated with few serious adverse events.

KEYWORDS:

• Adalimumab
• biologics
• Non-infectious uveitis
• TNF inhibitors
• Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease

Disclosure statement

There are no conflicts of interest to declare.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09273948.2022.2092007

Additional information

Funding

The study was supported by grants from the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research C (M. Takeuchi, 20K09840) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.