Abstract
Purpose :
Herpes family viruses represent a well-established etiology for infectious uveitis, specifically anterior uveitis. Information regarding such patients' demographic and presentation characteristics in Hispanic populations is scarce. We aim to describe the demographic and clinical characteristics in a cohort of Hispanic patients with Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) associated uveitis who live in Puerto Rico.
Methods :
We performed a retrospective medical chart review of patients with a clinical diagnosis of Herpetic Uveitis at two private uveitis practices in Puerto Rico. All patients underwent an appropriate medical workup; those whose uveitis diagnosis could be explained by any etiology other than HSV were excluded from the study. The demographic characteristics and ocular findings were recorded and moved to an external database, and a descriptive statistical analysis was performed.
Results :
The analysis included 145 patients who met the criteria for HSV-associated uveitis. The median age at presentation was 65 years (range 24 – 93 years); 62.86% of the patients were female, and 100% were Hispanic. Prior diagnosis of glaucoma was present in 61.43% of patients. From those patients whose serological data were available, 93.67% of patients were positive for HSV1 IgG (N=79), 26.92% were positive for HSV1 IgM (N=52), 44.16% were positive for HSV2 IgG (N=77), and 28.57% were positive for HSV2 IgM (N=49). Seventy-three percent of patients presented with unilateral uveitis. Visual acuity was equal or better than 20/50 in 78.93% of the involved eyes. Active anterior uveitis was present in 91.43% of eyes, while 41.41% were pseudophakic, 32.86% had keratic precipitates, 16.43% had cells in the anterior vitreous, and 12.86% had iris atrophy with transillumination defects.
Conclusions :
As was expected, our study suggests that HSV-associated uveitis most commonly affects females and occurs unilaterally. Interestingly, over half of the patients with HSV-associated uveitis had a past ocular history of glaucoma, suggesting a possible association between both conditions. In general, we found the clinical and demographic characteristics of patients with HSV-associated uveitis to be similar to those of Caucasian cohorts.
This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.