Patient Clinical Outcomes in Standalone Versus a Combined Ophthalmology-rheumatology Uveitis Clinic
Journal of Ophthalmic Inflammation and Infection(2022)
Abstract
Background To evaluate uveitis care outcomes in standalone versus a combined ophthalmology-rheumatology clinic. Methods Participants were patients aged 18 years and older with a minimum 12-month history of chronic uveitis prior to being referred to the combined uveitis clinic at Kresge Eye Institute and who were treated in the combined clinic for at least 6 months. Best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), objective markers of inflammation, and achieving targeted dose of immunomodulatory therapy (IMT) were compared in the cohort of uveitis patients 6 months prior to and after the initial evaluation in the combined clinic. Results Sixty-six percent of study participants were female with a mean age of 51.5 years. BCVA improved from 0.58 logMAR (Snellen: ~20/74) at the initial combined clinic visit to 0.50 logMAR (Snellen: ~20/63) 6 months after the first combined visit ( p = 0.0137). The establishment of the combined uveitis clinic led to higher frequency of patients at target dose of IMT: an increase from 49.0% at 6 months prior to the combined visit to 70.1.4% and 79.8% at the initial combined visit and 6 months after the combined visit, respectively. Conclusion A combined model of management for chronic uveitis patients wherein rheumatological services are coupled with ophthalmic care leads to improvement in patient clinical outcomes and achieving target therapy.
MoreTranslated text
Key words
Uveitis, Combined clinic, Rheumatology, Steroid sparing therapy, Immunomodulatory therapy
AI Read Science
Must-Reading Tree
Example
![](https://originalfileserver.aminer.cn/sys/aminer/pubs/mrt_preview.jpeg)
Generate MRT to find the research sequence of this paper
Chat Paper
Summary is being generated by the instructions you defined