Macular Abnormalities in Chinese Patients with Uveitis.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the prevalence of macular abnormalities in Chinese patients affected by uveitis.

METHODS

A retrospective study was performed by reviewing the medical records and high-definition spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) scans in a cohort of 413 uveitis eyes to assess the presence of macular abnormalities.

RESULTS

Macular abnormalities were observed in 242 (58.6%) of the 413 examined eyes with uveitis. The observed macular abnormalities include diffuse macular edema, cystoid macular edema (CME), and serous retinal detachment. In addition, vitreoretinal abnormalities in the patients with uveitis were evaluated through SD-OCT. The evaluated vitreoretinal abnormalities include epiretinal membrane, tractional CME, macular adhesions, macular hole, and choroidal neovascularization. The most frequent abnormality in the uveitis patients was CME, observed in 105 eyes (25.4%), and followed by epiretinal membrane, observed in 52 eyes (12.6%). Moreover, the percentage of uveitis patients with vitreoretinal abnormalities (23.1%) was significantly high.

CONCLUSIONS

Macular abnormalities were more frequently observed in uveitis compared with those in the general population. Multiple patterns of macular abnormalities indicate lesions of multilayer of cells. Therefore, when following up uveitis patients, it is highly recommended to screen with SD-OCT to evaluate the macular alterations of those patients. Careful observation of the macular abnormalities using SD-OCT may help to identify patients who are at risk for visual loss secondary to foveal changes and provide preventive treatment.