Incidence and clinical characteristics in a Colombian cohort of ocular toxoplasmosis

Clinical pattern of ocular toxoplasmosis treated in a referral centre in Serbia

“…24 Patients with OT are generally young adults, and in our study group, 76% of the patients were younger than 45 years. Similar results were found in other studies, 5,18,22,23,25 for instance, Bosch-Driessen et al 5 showed that the mean age at first presentation of OT was 29.5 years and that patients with primary ocular lesions were significantly older than those with combinations of active lesions and old scars. Also, Garweg et al 25 reported that the mean age at the first occurrence of OT was 23.9 years and patients with only one episode were older at first manifestation than those with two episodes (29.6 and 17.9 years, respectively).…”

“…Primary OT at first presentation has been reported at rates of 28-42.5%. 5,6,22,23 The greater frequency of recurrent disease may be accounted for by old peripheral lesions that go unnoticed by the patient; this is also supported by our clinical findings of a combination of active lesions and old retinochoroidal scars at a greater frequency than the patients were aware of.…”

“…27 However, with regard to visual outcome, unilateral legal blindness occurred in as many as 37.8% patients in the Colombian study. 22 This is substantially higher than the results reported in Europe; the rate of 24% that we found was virtually the same as the one reported by Bosch-Driessen et al, 5 whereas Scherrer et al 28 found moderate to severe impairment (VA o0.3 or 0.05, respectively) in 27.5% of cases, which correlated with the central localization of lesions. These opposing results obviously reflect the general differences in the clinical evolution and severity of Toxoplasma infection in South America vs Europe and USA due to the above-mentioned differences in the respective parasite genotypes.…”

“…5 At a rate of 73%, monocular presentation was clearly predominant and was within the range (64.3-86.4%) reported in other studies. 18,22,23 …”

“…Predominance of OT lesions within the vascular arcades has been commonly observed, 5,18,22,23 for instance, of up to 84.2% of unilateral and 75% of bilateral cases in Italy, 18 in a tertiary setting like ours where patients without visual impairment are infrequent, and of 73% in a Colombian cohort study. 22 In contrast, in a population-based study in Brazil, peripheral lesions predominated (58.5%). 27 However, with regard to visual outcome, unilateral legal blindness occurred in as many as 37.8% patients in the Colombian study.…”