Rawhya R EL-Shereef, Gehan lofty, Ahmad Shawkat Mohamed, Lamiaa Hamdy
Purpose:To determine the ocular manifestations of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and its relation to its disease activity. To analyze the prevalence and complications of uveitis and their predictors in JIA.
Methods: Fifty eight JIA patients and 20 age and sex matched healthy controls were included in this study; all JIA patients were recruited from Rheumatology and paediatric department. All patients were undergone complete rheumatological and ophthalmic examination including visual acuity, slit lamp examination of the anterior segment, dry eye evaluation using Rose Bengal stain and Schirmer test. Fundus examination and fundus photography were done to the suspected cases
Results: Sixteen patients (27.6%) had ocular manifestations. Most of JIA were asymptomatic 49 (84.48%) for ocular manifestation. Nine patients (15.5%) complained of ocular manifestations in the form of blurring of vision, burning sensation and eye dryness. Patients with ocular abnormalities had an earlier disease onset and longer disease duration than those without any lesions (p<0.001). There was a highly statistically significant difference between patients and controls as regarding all ocular lesions, which was significantly higher in the patients group. Meanwhile, the most common ocular manifestation of JIA is uveitis (17.2%), five patients had keratoconjunctivitis Sicca, 8 patients had visual field defects, also four had macular edema, two had cataract and two had increase intraocular pressure.
Conclusion: Ocular manifestations including sight threatening complications are not rare in patients with JIA. Uveitis is the most common ocular lesion. Therefore, continuous ophthalmologic examinations are needed in young people with JIA.