RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on uveitis patients receiving immunomodulatory and biological therapies (COPE STUDY) JF British Journal of Ophthalmology JO Br J Ophthalmol FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. SP bjophthalmol-2020-317417 DO 10.1136/bjophthalmol-2020-317417 A1 Aniruddha Kishandutt Agarwal A1 Sridharan Sudharshan A1 Padmamalini Mahendradas A1 Kalpana Babu A1 Pratik Shenoy A1 Mohit Dogra A1 Reema Bansal A1 Manisha Agarwal A1 Jyotirmay Biswas A1 S Balamurugan A1 Rupesh Agrawal A1 Vishali Gupta YR 2020 UL http://bjo.bmj.com/content/early/2020/10/02/bjophthalmol-2020-317417.abstract AB Purpose To evaluate the change in the ongoing immunomodulatory (IMT) and biological therapies among patients with non-infectious uveitis (NIU), and determine the number of uveitis relapses during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods In this national multicentric prospective case series, data of subjects with NIU receiving corticosteroids, systemic IMT and/or biological agents were analysed. The data collection was performed from 1 March 2020 to 25 June 2020. Main outcome measures included change in the ongoing treatments with corticosteroids, IMT and biological agents, use of alternate therapies and rates of uveitis relapse.Results In this study, 176 patients (284 eyes) with NIU (mean age: 33±17.1 years; males: 68) were included. A total of 121 eyes (90 patients) were deemed to have active NIU. Of these, seven subjects (7.8%) did not receive intravenous methylprednisolone despite need felt by the treating uveitis experts. In addition, 35 subjects (57.4%) received a rapid tapering dosage of oral corticosteroids despite active disease. A total of 161 (91.5%) subjects were receiving systemic IMT and 25 (14.2%) were on biological therapies. Overall, IMT was altered in 29/161 (18.0%) subjects. Twenty-two eyes were treated with intravitreal therapies in the study period. Fifty-three eyes (32.5%, 29 subjects) developed relapse of NIU, of which 25 subjects (86.2%) were deemed to have reactivation related to altered systemic IMT. No patient developed COVID-19 during follow-up.Conclusions During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, uveitis specialists may tend to reduce the ongoing systemic IMT, or prefer less aggressive treatment strategies for NIU. These subjects may be at high risk of relapse of uveitis.