Abstract
Purpose: :
To describe the long-term outcomes of visual acuity of Birdshot Retinochoroidopathy in a tertiary referral center in Argentina .
Methods: :
This is a retrospective longitudinal cohort study. Patients with the diagnosis of Birdshot Retinochoroidopathy were included between January 1990 and June 2009. Assessed variables were: age, gender, follow-up ,presenting symptoms, visual acuity, associated systemic and ocular diseases, presence of HLA-A29, medical therapy, complications and treatment side effects. Visual acuity was converted to logMAR units in order to obtain averages and enable comparisons. For the latter, the Student-t test was used, and if any significant differences were found, their significance would be calculated using the ANOVA test.
Results: :
Clinical records of 24 patients(16 female and 8 male) were rewieved .The mean age was 49.17 years old , a mean follow-up of 62.5 months .HLA A29 was positive in 80 % of patients . Ciclosporine was administered in 19 out of 24 patients , 12/19 with corticosteroids and 7/19 with micofenolate mofetil. Sixteen patients were treated with either periocular or intravitreal injections .In spite there was no statistically significant difference VA at baseline in the whole group was 0,34 logMAR units and after 5 years of follow up VA was 0,51 LogMAR units (p: 0.34 ) . In patients treated with Micofenolate Mofetil (MMF) VA at baseline was 0,45 LogMAR units and after 5 years of follow up was 0,18 LogMAR units . Finally when we compared the whole group with the MMF group there was no statistically significant difference in VA after 5 years of follow up ( p= 0.33). Macular edema was the most frequent complication in this series ( 75%) , followed by cataract (46%) .
Conclusions: :
In spite of the fact that differences between baseline mean visual acuities and mean visual acuities throughout the follow-up in the whole group failed to be significant, there is a trend towards visual loss over time.
Keywords: inflammation • chorioretinitis • visual acuity