Long-Term Outcomes of a Large Cohort of Patients with Eales’ Disease

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To analyze the long-term visual outcomes of Eales’ patients.

Methods: A retrospective review of Eales’ patients diagnosed between 1985 and 1995 with >10 years follow-up done.

Results: We included 500 patients (898 eyes) with mean follow-up duration of 15.8 years (10–25 years), and 81% patients had bilateral disease. Patients using oral steroid during acute stage disease had significantly better visual outcome at the final visit [0.42 logMar(6/18) ± 0.723 logMar(6/30)] compared to patients who did not receive oral steroids [(0.5907 logMar(6/24) ± 0.945 logMar(6/48)] (p = 0.004). Patients who received laser therapy had significantly better visual outcome at the final visit [(0.415 logMar(6/18) ± 0.66 logMar(6/30)] compared to those who did not undergo laser treatment [(0.9237 logMar(6/48) ± 1.31 logMar(6/120)] (p < 0.001). Poor presenting visual acuity and late stage of presentation were associated with poor visual outcome. Fifty-two percent of eyes had <5 recurrences over 10 years.

Conclusion: Eales’ disease is a bilateral recurrent retinal vasculitis disorder and timely treatment with steroid and/or laser photocoagulation result in better visual outcomes.

Keywords:

• Eales’ disease
• long-term follow-up
• posterior uveitis
• vasculitis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful to Mr. Vijay Prathab Singh and Mr. Job Sudhakar for helping us in conducting the study. We are also thankful to Mr. Sugathan and Mr. Viswanathan for statistical analysis. Finally, we acknowledge the efforts of Dr. Sabyasachi Sengupta and Rich Bains in helping with content review and English language editing

This article was presented as free paper at the ARVO Asia meeting at Seattle, Washington in 2014.

JB, BP, and RKS have made substantial contributions to conception and design and have been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; RK, HS, and HG have helped in acquisition of data, analysis, and interpretation of data. JB, BP, and RKS have given final approval of the version to be published.

DECLARATION OF INTEREST

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