Ocular manifestations and complications in a cohort of Behcet's disease patients in a tertiary hospital

Abstract

Aim of the work: To determine the frequency of initial ocular findings and subsequent ocular complications among a cohort of Behçets disease (BD) patients attending the outpatient clinic of a tertiary hospital. Patients and methods: The medical records of 94 BD patients attending the Rhuematology and Ophthalmology outpatient clinics of Ain Shams University Hospitals were retrospectively reviewed. The frequency of ocular findings and subsequent complications were recorded. Results: The mean age of patients at diagnosis was 37 ± 12 years; 65 were males and 29 females (M:F 2.24:1); 93.6% resided in urban and 6.38% in rural areas. Current management regimen included oral steroids in 60 patients, with pulse steroids given in case of disease activity. 32 patients received azathioprine and 48 patients received colchicine. Ocular manifestations were the presenting complaint in 7 (7.4%) patients; 5 complaining of redness, and 2 photophobia and excessive lacrimation, and 95.7% (n = 90) had ocular findings later on. The mean intraocular pressure was 13.8 ± 2.5 mmHg in the right eye and 15.5 ± 2.6 mmHg in the left. Anterior uveitis was present in 41.5%, posterior in 26.6% amd pan uveitis in 28.7%. 3 had a lost eye, 10 cataract, 6 glucoma and others (n = 5) had macular oedema and phthisis bulbi. Visual acuity was 6/12 in 64 (68.1%). Conclusion: Ocular manifestations were the presenting complaint in fewer than 10% of patients, and subsequent frequency of ocular complications reported in our study is among the highest recorded. Further multicenter studies are needed to identify ocular complications in BD.