International Ophthalmology 20: 223-228, 1996. 223 9 1996 KluwerAcademic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. Pattern of uveitis in a referral uveitis clinic in India * Jyotirmay Biswas, Shishir Narain, Debashis Das & Sudha K. Ganesh Medical and Vision Research Foundation, 18 College Road, Madras - 600 006, India Accepted 15 May 1996 Key words: malaria, nematode, tuberculosis, pattern of uveitis, India Abstract This report describes a retrospective study of all new patients in our uveitis clinic between January 1992 and December 1994, undertaken to identify the pattern of uveitis in the Indian subcontinent. A standard clinical protocol, and the naming-meshing system with tailored laboratory investigations were used to arrive at a final uveitic diagnosis. Uveitis comprised 1.5% of new cases seen at the centre. Out of 1273 uveitis cases, anterior uveitis was the most common type (39.28%), followed by posterior uveitis (28.75%), intermediate uveitis (17.44%), and panuveitis (14.53 %). The most commonly affected age group were patients in their forties (23.57%). Uveitis was less common in children below 10 years (3.61%) and in adults over 60 years of age (6.44%). Men (62.21%) were more commonly affected than women (37.79%). Aetiology remained undetermined in 59.31% of cases. Anterior uveitis was most commonly idiopathic (58.6%). The most common cause of posterior uveitis was toxoplasmosis (27.87%), and that of panuveitis was the Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada syndrome (21.08%). A higher incidence of microbiologically proven tubercular uveitis (5 cases), and uveitis due to live intraocular nematode (4 cases), and malaria (1 case), were seen, in contrast to other studies. Only 2 cases of AIDS with ocular lesions were seen. This paper reveals the pattern of uveitis seen at a major referral eye institute in India. Introduction The pattern of uveitis is largely influenced by a multi- tude of geographical, demographic and ethnic factors [1]. It also changes over time with the emergence or identification of newer uveitic entities. An epidemio- logical analysis of the pattern of uveitis in the Indi- an subcontinent is therefore likely to provide valuable information, and identify potential areas of clinical and basic research, related to uveitis in this subcontinent. The objective of our study was first to identify the pattern and incidence of uveitis at a major referral eye centre in the Indian subcontinent, and secondly, to perform a comparative analysis of this pattern with that of other studies. * Presented at the McGill Symposium on Uveitis, Montreal, Canada on 12 May 1995 Materials and methods We prospectively studied all new cases of uveitis over a 3-year period using a standard protocol and the results were compared with the epidemiological studies avail- able from other countries. A total of 1273 new uveitis cases were seen in the Uveitis Clinic at the Med- ical Research Foundation, between January 1992 and December 1994. Patients with infective endophthalmi- tis and Eales' disease were excluded from the study. A standard clinical file was filled in all cases. This included the salient features of the history. Ophthalmic examination including indirect ophthalmoscopy with scleral depression, ancillary tests (e.g. ultrasonogra- phy, FFA) and tailored laboratory investigations, were done to arrive at an anatomical and aetiological diag- noses of the uveitic entity. The anatomical type of uveitis was divided into four subgroups based on the International Uveitis Study Group classification sys- tem [2].