Choroidal involvement in systemic vasculitis: a systematic review

Abstract

Systemic vasculitides are a large group of heterogeneous diseases characterized by inflammatory destruction of blood vessels targeting diverse organs and tissues including the eye. As the most vascularized layer of the eye, the choroid is expected to be affected in multiple systemic rheumatologic diseases with vascular involvement. While there are plenty of studies investigating retinal vascular involvement, choroidal vascular involvement in systemic vasculitides has not been investigated in isolation. However, choroidal manifestations including thickness changes, choroidal vasculitis and ischemia may be the earliest diagnostic features of systemic vasculitic diseases. Thus, multimodal imaging of the choroid may help early detection of choroidal involvement which may also have prognostic implications in these life-threatening diseases. This article aimed to review involvement of the choroid in systemic vasculitic diseases.

Macular choroidal thickness and correlations in a healthy pediatric South Asian cohort: A spectral domain optical coherence tomography study

“…On the contrary, Herrera et al have reported an increase with aging in their study, after adjusting for AL [27]. Most studies have reported nasal choroid to be thinner as compared to the temporal choroid [9–30].…”

“…Choroidal thickness (ChT) may also serve as an inflammatory marker for autoimmune and inflammatory systemic disease, including vasculitis. Consequently, it is essential for future investigations to have an understanding of the normal baseline ChT generated from a population-based study [8][9][10][11].…”

Analysis of choroidal thickness in juvenile systemic lupus erythematosus and its correlation with laboratory tests

“…Maybe in different stages of disease progression, the tendency of CT to change differs. Multiple lines of evidence have suggested that the choroid tends to be thicker in active phases of systemic vasculitis and autoimmune inflammatory diseases [ 25 , 26 ]. However, all enrolled patients in our study were in remission phase of disease.…”

“…Systemic medications not only affect the microvasculature of the choroid directly, but also affect microvasculature elsewhere in the body, which result in the decreased blood supply of the choroid. Severe and repeated flares, accompanied by prolonged vasculitis, however, may lead to long-term insult and subsequent atrophy of the microvasculature, which ultimately cause the thinner choroid [ 25 , 26 ]. On the contrary, Ağın et al [ 27 ] reported the choroid was thicker in JSLE group compared to the control group at five measurement points with 750 μm intervals.…”

Understanding Ocular Findings and Manifestations of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: Update Review of the Literature

“…If the planned therapy lasts longer than a couple of months, it is necessary to use non-corticosteroid immunosuppressants. Appropriate immunosuppressive treatment leads, in most cases, to the resolution of lupus choroidopathy and then regaining vision [ 7 , 54 , 55 ].…”