Retinal Vasculitis

Abstract

Retinal vasculitis is a sight-threatening intraocular inflammation affecting the retinal vessels. It may occur as an isolated ocular condition, as a manifestation of infectious or neoplastic disorders, or in association with a systemic inflammatory disease. The search for an underlying etiology should be approached in a multidisciplinary fashion based on a thorough history, review of systems, physical examination, and laboratory evaluation. Discrimination between infectious and noninfectious etiologies of retinal vasculitis is important because their treatment is different. This review is based on recently published articles on retinal vasculitis and deals with its clinical diagnosis, its link with systemic diseases, and its laboratory investigation.

A clinical approach to the diagnosis of retinal vasculitis

“…It may occur as an isolated idiopathic condition, as a complication of infective or neoplastic disorders, or in association with systemic inflammatory disease [1] ( Table 1). It has to be stressed that, in this review, the term vasculitis will not be used in its original histopathological sense of vessel wall inflammation but in the sense of visible clinical vessel wall changes seen by ophthalmoscopy and/or fundus fluorescein angiography.…”

Eales’ disease: a rare primary perivasculitis of retina

“…Retinal vasculitis can present either as an isolated idiopathic disease or as a manifestation of infective or neoplastic conditions. It is also associated with systemic inflammatory or autoimmune disorders [2].…”

Imunogenética das uveítes

“…Pode ocorrer como uma condição isolada, como uma manifestação de doenças infecciosas (sífilis, tuberculose) ou neoplásicas, ou em associação com doenças inflamatórias sistêmicas (doença de Behçet, sarcoidose) (26) . A quimiocina CX3CL1 (fractalcina), implicada na adesão leucocitária, já foi observada em tecido uveal, sugerindo seu envolvimento na vigilância imune dos tecidos oculares (27) .…”