Understanding the non-specific symptoms of uveitis and its corroboration with systemic findings may give insight into its pathophysiology and may in turn help in its management. Association of thyroid disorders with uveitis is well known; however, emphasis has not been made in most of the past studies regarding its prevalence and spectrum of presentation [1, 2].

We performed a prospective analysis of patients presenting at our uvea clinic at a tertiary eye care center in Northern India and evaluated the patterns of uveitis in our population. As a part of study we also analyzed the prevalence of associated systemic diseases and systemic symptoms. We observed that 24.5% of patients of uveitis had underlying systemic disease, where past or present evidence of tuberculosis was most common followed by seronegative spondyloarthropathy and sarcoidosis with overall prevalence of 6.8%, 4.1%, and 2.5%, respectively. Prevalence of hypothyroidism in these patients was 1.5% amongst (12 patients out of 800) all patients and 6.1% among patients with known systemic illness. There were 10 females and 2 males with median age of 37 years (Table 1). Spectrum of involvement was varied, with intermediate uveitis (IU) being the most common presentation. All patients had confirmed hypothyroidism and were on thyroid replacement therapy. None of them suffered from hyperthyroidism. Thyroid functions tests and anti-thyroid antibodies were not ordered at the time of presentation as all patients were already on treatment.

Table 1 Demographic features, laterality and anatomical involvement in patients with thyroid dysfunction and uveitis
Full size table

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