Uveitis

Retinal vasculitis

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  • Inflammation of the retinal vasculature

Classification

  • Primary ocular disease

    • Birdshot chorioretinopathy
    • VKH
    • Sympathetic ophthalmia
  • Secondary to infection or systemic disease

    • Infection: herpetic, CMV, HTLV-1, HIV, toxoplasma, TB, lyme disease, cat-scratch, syphilis, Whipple disease
    • Systemic: leukaemia, lymphoma, SLE, Behcet’s, sarcoidosis, GPA, PAN, Churg-Strauss, APS

Clinical features

  • Reduced vision
  • Floaters
  • Positive scotomata
  • Asymptomatic (especially if peripheral)
  • Perivascular sheathing
  • Retinal haemorrhages
  • Vitritis
  • Disc swelling
  • CMO

Tests

  • FFA: vessel wall staining, leakages, skip lesions, new vessels, disc leakage, petalloid macular leakage, enlarged foveal avascular zone, vascular occlusion, capillary dropout
  • Widefield imaging
  • Blood panels

Management

  • Targeted at the underlying cause, and otherwise as for intermediate uveitis

Susac’s syndrome

“Small infarctions of cochlear, retinal and encephalic tissue” ie. SICRET syndrome)

  • Multiple BRAOs

  • “Boxcar” segmentation of the blood column seen in peripheral vessels on FFA plus non-perfused arterioles with hyperfluorescent walls

  • Triad:

    • Encephalopathy: MRI indicated
    • Hearing loss: audiogram indicated
    • Retinal BRAOs
  • Management: steroids

Whipple disease

  • Caused by actinomycetes bacterium: Tropheryma whipplei

  • Constellation of

    • Gastrointestinal symptoms
    • Migratory polyarthritis
    • Panuveitis
    • Retinal vasculitis
  • Duodenal biopsy reveals PAS-positive organism in macrophages

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Uveitis in JIA