Uveitis of Unknown Etiology: Not So Unknown Anymore

Fastidious bacteria were frequently identified during serologic and molecular screening in patients with uveitis of unknown etiology.

Uveitis can be a manifestation of a variety of infectious and noninfectious conditions. Before contemporary screening methods were developed, determining the cause of uveitis often required invasive evaluation (intraocular sampling by vitrectomy), and, even then, etiologic diagnoses sometimes remained unknown.

To assess the utility of molecular screening methods for determining the etiology of uveitis, researchers evaluated 1520 intraocular and serum specimens from 1321 patients who were seen for uveitis at a single hospital in France between January 2001 and September 2007. By design, none of the patients had clinical findings pathognomonic of a specific etiology, in particular, toxoplasmosis.

An infectious etiology was demonstrated in 147 c…

Reviewing Author

Larry M. Baddour, MD

Disclosures

RoyaltiesUpToDate, Inc. (Authorship duties)

Larry M. Baddour, MD

Disclosures

RoyaltiesUpToDate, Inc. (Authorship duties)