Demographic and Clinical Characteristics of Uveitis in Turkey: The First National Registry Report

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To describe the demographic and clinical profiles of uveitis patients seen at secondary and tertiary care centers in Turkey.

Methods: A nationwide web-based registry of patients with uveitis was initiated in November 2008. We analyzed data from a single baseline registry-enrollment visit.

Results: In 33 centers, 6967 eyes of 4863 consecutive patients were registered. The mean age at presentation was 36.6 ± 15.7 (1–92) years; 51.3% were male. Behçet disease was the leading diagnosis (24.9%), followed by ankylosing spondylitis and/or HLA-B27-associated anterior uveitis (9.7%), toxoplasmosis (7.1%), Fuchs uveitis (6.3%), and presumed herpetic anterior uveitis (6.0%). Visual acuity was 0.1 or worse in 22% of eyes. The most common ocular complications were posterior synechiae (16.2%) and cataract formation (16.2%).

Conclusions: Behçet disease is still the most common non-infectious etiology in Turkish uveitis patients, while ocular toxoplasmosis and herpetic anterior uveitis are the most common infectious uveitic entities.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Özge Yanık for her help in the statistical analysis.

The following are the members of the BUST Study Group listed in order of the number of patients registered at each center: Ilknur Tugal-Tutkun, Yılmaz Özyazgan, Didar Uçar, Pınar Özdal, Yıldız Boztok, Sibel Kadayıfçılar, Bora Eldem, F. Nilüfer Yalçındağ, Figen Batıoğlu, Özge Yanık, Nilüfer Berker, Yasemin Özdamar, Yonca Akova, Leyla Erkanlı, Ertuğrul Mirza, Merih Soylu, Yüksel Süllü, Gülten Sungur, Ali Osman Saatci, Nurettin Akyol, Adem Türk, Özlem Yıldırım, Tülay Akçetin, Cemil Apaydın, Sinan Emre, Özcan Kayıkçıoğlu, Haluk Kazokoğlu, Sumru Önal, Muhittin Taşkapılı, Şengül Özdek, Gökhan Gürelik, Banu Öztürk, Suzan Güven Yılmaz, Halil Ateş, Ahmet Maden, Aras Saklamaz, A Hakan Durukan, Güngör Sobacı, Zeliha Yazar, Gülay Güllülü, Pelin Yılmazbaş, Sema Dündar, Selçuk Sızmaz,, Ayşen Topalkara, Ayşe Vural, Levent Karabaş, Muzaffer Öztürk, Şeyda Uğurlu, Ahmet Karakurt, Feyza Önder, Nur Ayrancıoğlu.

This study has been presented partly at “The 18th European Society of Ophthalmology (SOE)” Geneva, Switzerland, June 4–7, 2011; “The 11th International Ocular Inflammation Society Congress,” Goa, India, November 13–16, 2011; and “The 13th Congress of International Ocular Inflammation Society,” San Francisco, USA, September 25–27, 2015.

DECLARATION OF INTEREST

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

Funding

The BUST study was supported by the Turkish Ophthalmological Association using a special grant from Novartis, Turkey. Novartis had no role in the study design or interpretation of the data, the writing of the manuscript, or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. Publication of this article is not contingent upon approval by Novartis. Financial support outside the submitted work: Yılmaz Özyazgan has received honoraria from Servier and Allergan; Figen Batıoğlu has received honoraria from Bayer and Novartis; Ilknur Tugal-Tutkun has received honoraria from Servier, AbbVie, Santen, and Allergan.

Additional information

Funding

The BUST study was supported by the Turkish Ophthalmological Association using a special grant from Novartis, Turkey. Novartis had no role in the study design or interpretation of the data, the writing of the manuscript, or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. Publication of this article is not contingent upon approval by Novartis. Financial support outside the submitted work: Yılmaz Özyazgan has received honoraria from Servier and Allergan; Figen Batıoğlu has received honoraria from Bayer and Novartis; Ilknur Tugal-Tutkun has received honoraria from Servier, AbbVie, Santen, and Allergan.