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 97
OP 101
DO 10.1136/bjophthalmol-2020-317417
VO 106
IS 1
A1 Agarwal, Aniruddha Kishandutt
A1 Sudharshan, Sridharan
A1 Mahendradas, Padmamalini
A1 Babu, Kalpana
A1 Shenoy, Pratik
A1 Dogra, Mohit
A1 Bansal, Reema
A1 Agarwal, Manisha
A1 Biswas, Jyotirmay
A1 Balamurugan, S
A1 Agrawal, Rupesh
A1 Gupta, Vishali
YR 2022
UL http://bjo.bmj.com/content/106/1/97.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.