Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on uveitis patients receiving immunomodulatory and biological therapies (COPE STUDY)

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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.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2022

Erschienen:

2022

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:106

Enthalten in:

The British journal of ophthalmology - 106(2022), 1 vom: 09. Jan., Seite 97-101

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Agarwal, Aniruddha Kishandutt [VerfasserIn]
Sudharshan, Sridharan [VerfasserIn]
Mahendradas, Padmamalini [VerfasserIn]
Babu, Kalpana [VerfasserIn]
Shenoy, Pratik [VerfasserIn]
Dogra, Mohit [VerfasserIn]
Bansal, Reema [VerfasserIn]
Agarwal, Manisha [VerfasserIn]
Biswas, Jyotirmay [VerfasserIn]
Balamurugan, S [VerfasserIn]
Agrawal, Rupesh [VerfasserIn]
Gupta, Vishali [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Biological Factors
Immunology
Immunosuppressive Agents
Infection
Inflammation
Journal Article

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 11.01.2022

Date Revised 11.01.2022

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1136/bjophthalmol-2020-317417

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM315819871