Sex and reproduction in the transmission of infectious uveitis

Gender differences in retinal diseases: A review

Gender medicine is a medical specialty that addresses gender differences in health and disease. Traditionally, medical research and clinical practice have often been focused on male subjects and patients. As a result, gender differences in medicine have been overlooked. Gender medicine considers the biological, psychological, and social differences between the genders and how these differences affect the development, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. For ophthalmological diseases epidemiological differences are known. However, there are not yet any gender-based ophthalmic treatment approaches for women and men. This review provides an overview of gender differences in retinal diseases. It is intended to make ophthalmologists, especially retinologists, more sensitive to the topic of gender medicine. The goal is to enhance comprehension of these aspects by highlighting fundamental gender differences. Integrating gender medicine into ophthalmological practice helps promote personalized and gender-responsive health care and makes medical research more accurate and relevant to the entire population.

Demographic and Clinical Characteristics of Uveitis in Turkey: The First National Registry Report

PURPOSE

To describe the demographic and clinical profiles of uveitis patients seen at secondary and tertiary care centers in Turkey.

METHODS

A nationwide web-based registry of patients with uveitis was initiated in November 2008. We analyzed data from a single baseline registry-enrollment visit.

RESULTS

In 33 centers, 6967 eyes of 4863 consecutive patients were registered. The mean age at presentation was 36.6 ± 15.7 (1-92) years; 51.3% were male. Behçet disease was the leading diagnosis (24.9%), followed by ankylosing spondylitis and/or HLA-B27-associated anterior uveitis (9.7%), toxoplasmosis (7.1%), Fuchs uveitis (6.3%), and presumed herpetic anterior uveitis (6.0%). Visual acuity was 0.1 or worse in 22% of eyes. The most common ocular complications were posterior synechiae (16.2%) and cataract formation (16.2%).

CONCLUSIONS

Behçet disease is still the most common non-infectious etiology in Turkish uveitis patients, while ocular toxoplasmosis and herpetic anterior uveitis are the most common infectious uveitic entities.

The role of sex in uveitis and ocular inflammation

Uveitides can be due to non-infectious and infectious etiologies. It has been observed that there is a gender difference with a greater preponderance of non-infectious uveitis in women than in men. This review will describe both non-infectious and infectious uveitides and describes some of the current autoimmune mechanisms thought to be underlying the gender difference. It will specifically look at non-infectious uveitides with systemic involvement including juvenile idiopathic arthritis, spondyloarthopathies, sarcoidosis, Behçet’s disease, and Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease and at uveitides without systemic involvement including sympathetic ophthalmia, birdshot chorioretinitis, and the white dot syndromes. Infectious uveitides like acute retinal necrosis, progressive outer retinal necrosis, and cytomegalovirus mediated uveitis will be mentioned. Different uveitides with female- or male- predominance are presented and discussed.