Vitamin D Supplementation and Remission from Chronic Anterior Uveitis.

Purpose: Chronic anterior uveitis (CAU) often requires suppressive therapy, which has potential side effects including cataract, ocular hypertension, and increased risk of infection. No remittive therapy is currently available; however, several studies have demonstrated an association between low 25-hydroxy Vitamin D (25OHD) levels and either uveitis incidence or uveitis disease activity. This study investigates the potential of Vitamin D supplementation as a remittive treatment for CAU.

Incidence and Remission of Post-Surgical Cystoid Macular Edema Following Cataract Surgery in Eyes With Intraocular Inflammation.

Purpose: To evaluate the incidence, remission, and relapse of post-surgical cystoid macular edema (PCME) following cataract surgery in inflammatory eye disease.

Methods: A total of 1859 eyes that had no visually significant macular edema prior to cataract surgery while under tertiary uveitis management were included. Standardized retrospective chart review was used to gather clinical data.

Incidence of and Risk Factors for Cataract in Anterior Uveitis.

Purpose: To estimate the incidence/risk factors for cataract in noninfectious anterior uveitis.

Design: Retrospective multicenter cohort study (6 US tertiary uveitis sites, 1978-2010).

Methods: Data were harvested by trained expert reviewers, using protocol-driven review of experts' charts.

Long-term visual acuity outcomes following cataract surgery in eyes with ocular inflammatory disease.

Purpose: To evaluate the long-term visual acuity (VA) outcome of cataract surgery in inflammatory eye disease.

Setting: Tertiary care academic centres.

Design: Multicentre retrospective cohort study.

Risk of Cataract in Intermediate Uveitis.

Purpose: To determine the incidence of and predictive factors for cataract in intermediate uveitis.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Methods: Patients were identified from the Systemic Immunosuppressive Therapy for Eye Diseases Cohort Study, in which medical records were reviewed to determine demographic and clinical data of every eye/patient at every visit at 5 participating US tertiary care uveitis centers.

Contemporaneous Risk Factors for Visual Acuity in Non-Infectious Uveitis.

Introduction: We evaluated the associations of clinical and demographic characteristics with visual acuity (VA) with over 5 years in a subspecialty noninfectious uveitis population.

Methods: Retrospective data from 5,530 noninfectious uveitis patients were abstracted by expert reviewers, and contemporaneous associations of VA with demographic and clinical factors were modeled.

Results: Patients were a median of 41 years old, 65% female, and 73% white.

Exudative Retinal Detachment in Ocular Inflammatory Diseases: Risk and Predictive Factors.

Purpose: This study evaluated the risk and risk factors for exudative retinal detachment (ERD) in ocular inflammatory diseases.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Methods: Patients with noninfectious ocular inflammation had been followed longitudinally between 1978 and 2007 at 4 US subspecialty uveitis centers.

Factors Predictive of Remission of Chronic Anterior Uveitis.

Purpose: To estimate the incidence of medication-free remission of chronic anterior uveitis and identify predictors thereof.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Participants: Patients diagnosed with anterior uveitis of longer than 3 months' duration followed up at United States tertiary uveitis care facilities.

Visual Acuity Outcome over Time in Non-Infectious Uveitis.

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

Comparison Between Methotrexate and Mycophenolate Mofetil Monotherapy for the Control of Noninfectious Ocular Inflammatory Diseases.

Purpose: To compare mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) to methotrexate (MTX) as corticosteroid-sparing therapy for ocular inflammatory diseases.

Design: Retrospective analysis of cohort study data.

Methods: Participants were identified from the Systemic Immunosuppressive Therapy for Eye Diseases Cohort Study.

Remission of Non-Infectious Anterior Scleritis: Incidence and Predictive Factors.

Purpose: To assess how often non-infectious anterior scleritis remits and identify predictive factors.

Methods: Our retrospective cohort study at four ocular inflammation subspecialty centers collected data for each affected eye/patient at every visit from center inception (1978, 1978, 1984, 2005) until 2010. Remission was defined as inactivity of disease off all suppressive medications at all visits spanning at least three consecutive months or at all visits up to the last visit (to avoid censoring patients stopping follow-up after remission).

B Cell Anomalies in Autoimmune Retinopathy (AIR).

Purpose: Autoimmune retinopathy (AIR) is a retinopathy associated with unexplained vision loss presumably linked to circulating antiretinal antibodies; currently, however, there are no standardized criteria regarding the diagnosis, treatment strategy, or pathogenesis of this disease. The importance of B-lymphocyte immunophenotyping in the classification of AIR is unknown.

Methods: We utilized 15-color multiparametric flow cytometry to identify aberrations in B cell subsets that may contribute to the pathophysiology of AIR.

Risk of Ocular Hypertension in Adults with Noninfectious Uveitis.

Purpose: To describe the risk and risk factors for ocular hypertension (OHT) in adults with noninfectious uveitis.

Design: Retrospective, multicenter, cohort study.

Participants: Patients aged ≥18 years with noninfectious uveitis seen between 1979 and 2007 at 5 tertiary uveitis clinics.

Gradient Boosted Decision Tree Classification of Endophthalmitis Versus Uveitis and Lymphoma from Aqueous and Vitreous IL-6 and IL-10 Levels.

Purpose: To investigate the effectiveness of gradient boosting to classify endophthalmitis versus uveitis and lymphoma by intraocular cytokine levels.

Method: Patient diagnoses and aqueous and vitreous levels of interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-10 were retrospectively extracted from a National Eye Institute Histopathology Core database and compared by Kruskal-Wallis and post hoc Dunn tests. A gradient-boosted decision tree classifier was trained to differentiate endophthalmitis versus uveitis and lymphoma from vitreous IL-6 and IL-10, vitreous IL-6 only, and aqueous IL-6 only data sets; and was tested with 80-20 train-test split and 3-fold cross-validation of the training set.

Panax Notoginseng Saponin Controls IL-17 Expression in Helper T Cells.

Purpose: Panax Notoginseng, a traditional Chinese medicine, is known as an anti-inflammatory herb. However, the molecular mechanism by which it controls helper T cell mediated immune responses is largely unknown.

Methods: Naive CD4 T cells isolated from healthy donors, patients with Behcet's disease, and C57BL/6 mice were polarized into Th1, Th17, and Treg cells.

Comparative efficacy of steroid-sparing therapies for non-infectious uveitis.

Introduction: Non-infectious uveitis encompasses a group of inflammatory eye diseases that can cause irreversible vision loss if left untreated or undertreated. In cases requiring stemic treatment, a step-wise treatment approach is often employed starting with corticosteroids for severe active disease, followed by initiation of steroid-sparing therapies to maintain inflammatory control and avoid the abundant complications of long-term corticosteroid use.

Areas Covered: We review the current high-quality evidence comparing the efficacy of various systemic steroid-sparing agents in the treatment of non-infectious uveitis.

Pharmacologic Treatment of Noninfectious Uveitis.

Uveitis encompasses a spectrum of diseases whose common feature is intraocular inflammation, which may be infectious or noninfectious in etiology (Nussenblatt and Whitcup 2010). Infectious causes of uveitis are typically treated with appropriate antimicrobial therapy and will not be discussed in this chapter. Noninfectious uveitides are thought have an autoimmune component to their etiology and are thus treated with anti-inflammatory agents.

DELINEATION OF CHOROIDAL AND RETINAL LESIONS IN POSTERIOR UVEITIS BY MULTISPECTRAL WIDE-FIELD SCANNING LASER OPHTHALMOSCOPY.

Purpose: To investigate whether wide-field multispectral scanning laser ophthalmoscopy could assist in determining depth of chorioretinal pathology in posterior uveitis.

Methods: Cross-sectional retrospective review of patients with birdshot chorioretinopathy (BCR; 42 eyes of 21 patients) or active primary vitreoretinal lymphoma (PVRL; 18 eyes of 10 patients) who had multispectral wide-field scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (Optos) images. Images acquired with 532 nm and 635 nm lasers were analyzed separately using Optos V Vantage Pro Review software.

Gevokizumab in the Treatment of Autoimmune Non-necrotizing Anterior Scleritis: Results of a Phase I/II Clinical Trial.

Purpose: To evaluate the safety and potential efficacy of gevokizumab, an anti-interleukin 1β (IL-1β) monoclonal antibody, in the treatment of active, noninfectious, non-necrotizing anterior scleritis.

Design: Phase 1/2, open label, nonrandomized, prospective, single-arm pilot trial.

Methods: Eight patients with active, noninfectious, non-necrotizing anterior scleritis with a scleral inflammatory grade of +1 to +3 in at least 1 eye were enrolled.

Modulation of Immune Responses by Extracellular Vesicles From Retinal Pigment Epithelium.

Purpose: Extracellular vesicles (EV), such as exosomes, are important mediators of intercellular communication and have been implicated in modulation of the immune system. We investigated if EV released from retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) modulate immune responses in vitro.

Methods: Extracellular vesicles were isolated from ARPE-19 cultures stimulated or not with the inflammatory cytokines IL-1β, IFN-γ, and TNF-α.