title: Cyclosporine: a therapy in inflammatory eye disease.
abstract: Severe uveitis is a relatively common and difficult clinical management problem in ophthalmology. Recently, cyclosporine-A (Cs-A) has been shown to be of therapeutic benefit in the management of sight threatening inflammatory eye disease. In order to examine the efficacy and long term safety of Cs-A, we conducted an open uncontrolled study in 22 patients with sight threatening uveitis whose disease had previously been refractory to treatment with systemic corticosteroids (22 patients), azathioprine (5 patients) and cyclophosphamide (2 patients). Uveitis was idiopathic in 16 cases, one patient had Reiter's syndrome, two had Vogt Koyanagi Harada disease and one patient had sarcoidosis. There were twelve males and ten females with a mean age of 40.5 years (range 22-67 yrs). Nineteen patients (86%) showed significant clinical improvement after treatment with Cs-A (10 mgm/kg/day) with decreased inflammatory activity and improved visual acuity. Three patients failed to respond to Cs-A therapy, while 4 subjects whose disease had initially responded to Cs-A relapsed on attempted withdrawal of this medication. Side effects were common in patients receiving Cs-A [5 mgm/kg/day (or greater)], with hypertension, tremor, hirsutism and raised serum creatinine being most frequent. We conclude that CS-A is an effective immunosuppressive agent in the treatment of patients with uveitis; however, its usefulness is limited by frequent side effects and disease relapse on attempted drug withdrawal.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Ocular Immunology, School of Pathology, University of NSW, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wakefield
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: McCluskey
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016918:Arthritis, Reactive / Q000188:drug therapy; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000187:drug effects; D003404:Creatinine / Q000097:blood; D016572:Cyclosporine / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D005128:Eye Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006628:Hirsutism / Q000139:chemically induced; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012008:Recurrence; D012507:Sarcoidosis / Q000188:drug therapy; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014202:Tremor / Q000139:chemically induced; D014605:Uveitis / Q000188:drug therapy*; D014607:Uveomeningoencephalitic Syndrome / Q000188:drug therapy; D014792:Visual Acuity
chemical_list: D016572:Cyclosporine; D003404:Creatinine