Visual Acuity Outcome over Time in Non-Infectious Uveitis

ABSTRACT

Introduction: We evaluated visual acuity (VA) over 5 years in a subspecialty noninfectious uveitis population.

Methods: Retrospective data from 5,530 noninfectious uveitis patients with anterior, intermediate, posterior or panuveitis were abstracted by expert reviewers. Mean VA was calculated using inverse probability of censoring weighting to account for losses to follow-up.

Results: Patients were a median of 41 years old, 65% female, and 73% white. Initial mean VA was worse among panuveitis (20/84) than posterior (20/64), intermediate (20/47), and anterior (20/37) uveitides. On average, mean VA improved by 0.62, 0.51, 0.37, and 0.26 logMAR-equivalent lines over 2 years, respectively (each P < .001), then remained stable, except posterior uveitis mean VA worsened to initial levels.

Conclusion: Mean VA of uveitic eyes improved and, typically, improvement was sustained under uveitis subspecialty care. Because VA tends to improve under tertiary care, mean VA change appears a better outcome for clinical studies than time-to-loss of VA.

KEYWORDS:

• Visual acuity
• Uveitis
• inverse probability of censoring weighting

Acknowledgments

We thank the MUST Research Group for providing visual acuity data through 5 years from the MUST Trial and Follow-up Study for comparison to the SITE visual acuity data.

Declaration of Interest Statement

Maxwell Pistilli, Marshall M. Joffe, Sapna S. Gangaputra, Siddharth S. Pujari, Douglas A. Jabs, Grace A. Levy-Clarke, Hosne Begum, Tonetta D. Fitzgerald, and Nirali P. Bhatt, report no conflicts of interest. James T. Rosenbaum serves or has served as a consultant for Abbott Laboratories, Amgen, Allergan, Genentech, Novartis, and UCB and has been involved in clinical trials for Abbott Laboratories, Genentech, Lux Biosciences, and Eyegate Pharma. Jennifer E. Thorne serves as a consultant for Allergan and XOMA. C. Stephen Foster serves as a lecturer for Alcon, Inspire, Ista, and Centocor; as a Consultant for Sirion; as a consultant and lecturer for Allergan and Bausch & Lomb; and as an equity owner for EyeGate. John H. Kempen serves or has served in the last 3 years as a consultant for Clearside, Gilead, and Santen and has received grant funding from EyeGate.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported primarily by National Eye Institute Grant [EY014943 (JHK)]. Additional support was provided by Research to Prevent Blindness, the Paul and Evanina Mackall Foundation, and the Lois Pope Life Foundation. JHK was an RPB James S Adams Special Scholar Award recipient, JET was an RPB Harrington Special Scholar Award recipient, and DAJ and JTR were Research to Prevent Blindness Senior Scientific Investigator Award recipients during the course of the study. GAL-C previously was supported by and RBN and HNS continue to be supported by intramural funds of the National Eye Institute. EBS receives support from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. The MUST Trial and Follow-up Study was funded by National Eye Institute Cooperative Agreements [U10EY014656 (MMA), U10EY014660 (JTH), and U10EY014655 (DAJ)]. The funding sources had no role in the design, and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, and approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication; Lois Pope Life Foundation; Paul and Evanina Mackall Foundation; Research to Prevent Blindness.