Demography and Clinical Pattern of Newly Diagnosed Uveitis Patients in Malaysia

Introduction: Uveitis is one of the common causes of visual impairment in Malaysia and it remains a challenging entity to diagnose and manage. This study aims to observe the demographic and clinical pattern of uveitis cases that are referred to most ophthalmology units in Malaysia Methods: This was an observational, multicenter study with a total of 1199 newly diagnosed uveitis patients. Data collected and analyzed included age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, state of origin, laterality, granulomatous or non-granulomatous uveitis, and etiology of uveitis. Results: The results showed that majority of the patients across all age groups had anterior uveitis (n=560; 46.7%). The higher the age group, the higher the percentage of anterior uveitis patients (39.0% among 20-40 age group vs 61.3% among the >60 age group). Sixty three percent of the patients presented with unilateral uveitis (n= 760, p <0.001). Non granulomatous uveitis comprised 84.5% of all patients (n=1013, p < 0.001). Non-infectious etiology contributed to 65.7% of all patients (n=788, p <0.001) with idiopathic (57.2%, n=686) as the most common cause followed by Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada (VKH) syndrome (2.1%, n=25). Infectious uveitis comprised 34.3% (411 patients) in total with Tuberculous (TB) related uveitis (105 patients with 8.8%) and Viral related uveitis (107 patients with 8.9%) contributing the most followed by Ocular Toxoplasmosis (n=93,7.8%). The likelihood of posterior uveitis being more infectious was statistically significant (Odds ratio (OR) 12.54, 95% CI 8.81-18.13) (p-value <0.001) Conclusion: This study has highlighted the demographic data and common causes of uveitis in Malaysia