Behçet’s disease uveitis: is there a need for new emerging drugs?

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Behçet’s disease uveitis (BDU) is a potentially blinding disorder. Systemic treatment with disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) is mandatory in patients with intraocular inflammation involving the posterior segment of the eye.

Areas covered: This article discusses existing systemic treatment with corticosteroids and conventional and biologic DMARDs as well as adjunctive local therapy in BDU. An overview is provided for a wide range of biologic DMARDs that have shown promise or investigated in clinical trials. Most recently introduced biologic DMARDs and targeted synthetic DMARDs are also reviewed for their potential in the treatment of BDU.

Expert opinion: The prognosis of patients with BDU has remarkably improved after the introduction of biologic DMARDs. An expanding therapeutic armamentarium will allow treatment of most refractory cases. The ultimate goal is to provide drug-free remission with preservation of 20/20 vision.

KEYWORDS:

• Behçet’s disease
• biological
• disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug
• interferon
• interleukin-1 inhibitor
• interleukin-6 inhibitor
• retinal vasculitis
• small-molecule inhibitor
• tumor necrosis factor inhibitor
• uveitis

Declaration of interest

Ilknur Tugal-Tutkun has received consultancy and lecture fees from AbbVie, Turkey. Pinar Çakar Özdal has received consultancy and lecture fees from AbbVie, Turkey, lecture fees from Novartis, Turkey. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.