Abstract
PURPOSE: To describe the demographics and epidemiology of uveitis presenting to a multi-tier ophthalmology hospital network in Southern India. METHODS: Cross-sectional hospital-based study of 19,352 patients with uveitis presenting between March 2012 and August 2018. RESULTS: In total, 1,734,272 new patients were seen across the secondary and tertiary centers of our multi-tier ophthalmology hospital network during the study period. Among them, 25,353 eyes of 19,352 patients were diagnosed with uveitis and were included in the study. Uveitis constituted 1.11% of all cases. The majority of patients were male (60.33%) and had unilateral (68.09%) affliction. The most common age group was 21-50 years with 12,204 (63.06%) patients. The most common type of uveitis was anterior uveitis, which was seen in 7380 (38.14%) patients, followed by posterior uveitis in 5397 (23.89%) patients. Among the infectious causes, tuberculosis was the most common etiology (2551 patients, 13%) followed by toxoplasmosis (1147 patients, 6%). CONCLUSION: Uveitis constituted 1.11% of all cases presenting to our clinics. It was more common in the age group of 21-50 and was predominantly unilateral. Anterior uveitis was the most common subtype seen in 38%.