Uveitis in Iraqi patients : prevalence of causes and importance of laboratory tests

الملخص EN

Objective : To determine the prevalences of uveitic etiologies and to show the validity of the diagnostic laboratory tests and procedures in the process of diagnosing the causes of uveitis.

Methods : 124 patients with uveitis (74 males and 50 females) were included in this hospital based study; in Martyr Adnan Teaching Hospital, and Ibn Al- Haitham Teaching Hospital for Ophthalmologic Diseases, Bagdad.

A full history was taken from each patient followed by eye examination, and then every patient was thoroughly investigated by several labortory and radiologic tests.

Results : Uveitis affects males more than females and affected patients are most commonly of a young age group (21-40 years old).

We found that the most common cause of uveitis in Iraqi patients is Behcets disease (21.8 %), followed by idiopathic entity (17.7 %), Fuch's uveitis (8.1 %), toxoplasmosis (7.3 %), and other less frequent causes.

Conclusions : The most common causes of uveitis in Iraqi patients are Behcets disease and idiopathic uveitis.

The diagnosis of uveitis etiologies depends mainly on clinical grounds, however, it appears that the laboratory tests are of value in some specific entities and need to be used very selectively in a costumed or tailored protocol.