Abstract
Purpose: :
To report the trends in the distribution and characteristics of patients with anterior uveitis (AU) in Singapore.
Methods: :
A retrospective review of the clinical records of all new patients who presented with AU to the uveitis subspecialty clinic from 2005 to 2010 at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore.
Results: :
There were 600 new cases of AU. This comprised 61.5% of a total of 976 new patients with uveitis from 2005 to 2010. The mean age was 49.1±16.6 years. There was a male predominance (63.8%), with a male: female ratio of 1.8:1. Chinese people formed the majority (68.2%) followed by Malays (15.0%). Most cases were unilateral (79.8%). Cases were most often idiopathic (49.2%). Other common aetiological causes included immune-recovery uveitis (10.8%), Fuchs’ heterochromic iridocyclitis (5.3%) and ankylosing spondylitis-related AU (5.0%). The incidence of viral aetiologies was constant but there were increasing trends in ankylosing spondylitis-related AU from 2.8% in 2008 to 6.3% in 2010, psoriasis-associated AU from 1.7% in 2005 to 4.2% in 2008, and in Posner-Schlossman syndrome from 0.6% in 2006 to 8.4% in 2008.
Conclusions: :
Between 2005 to 2010, AU remained the predominant form of uveitis seen in Singapore. Infective aetiologies are the most common amongst non-idiopathic cases with herpes viruses being most prevalent. In spite of increased use of polymerase chain reaction in the detection of infectious disease, there was no increase in the incidence of infectious causes for uveitis. There was an increase in CMV-related immune recovery uveitis from 2005-2007 followed by a decline. This could reflect a change in HIV management in Singapore.
Keywords: uveitis-clinical/animal model • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: prevalence/incidence