Intraocular Tuberculosis

Authors and Disclosures

Reema Bansal¹, Aman Sharma² and Amod Gupta*<sup>1

1</sup>Advanced Eye Centre, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh 160012, India
²Department of Internal Medicine, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh 160012, India

Financial & competing interests disclosure
The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

*Author for correspondence
Tel.: +91 172 2747837 Fax: +91 172 2747837 eyepgi@sify.com

Sidebar

Key Issues

• Intraocular involvement due to tuberculosis (TB) is being increasingly recognized.

• The prevalence of intraocular TB shows geographic variation.

• Serpiginous-like choroiditis, retinal vasculitis and choroidal tubercles are important manifestations of TB-uveitis.

• In animal models, a hematogenous route has been demonstrated to cause intraocular infection by Mycobacterium tuberculosis(MTB).

• In the absence of microbiological/histological evidence of intraocular infection by MTB, the diagnosis is mostly presumptive and supported by corroborative evidence of latent TB.

• PCR is being increasingly used to detect MTB and, although highly specific, it has low sensitivity.

• The tuberculin skin test, IFN-g release assays, radiological findings, exclusion of known other uveitic entities and a favorable response to conventional anti-TB therapy aid in diagnosing presumed intraocular TB.

• Antitubercular therapy is effective but should be administered with careful monitoring of adverse events by an infectious disease expert.