title: [Prevalence of endogenous uveitis in Kagoshima Prefecture, Southwest Japan].
abstract: To estimate the current trend in prevalence of endogenous uveitis and HTLV-I-associated uveitis (HAU) in a local area, we sent questionnaires to all ophthalmologic clinics in Kagoshima Prefecture, southern Japan, which has a population of 1.8 million, with reference to uveitis patients seen during May-July 1993 and May-June 1994. Answers to the questionnaires were obtained from about half of the ophthalmologists in each survey session. The proportion of uveitis cases was on the average 0.4% of outpatients, and the prevalence of uveitis was estimated to be 40.4 x 10(-5). The major uveitis entity consisted of toxoplasmosis (7.8%), Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease (5.0%), Behçet's disease (4.1%), sarcoidosis (3.4%), and 71.3% of unclassified cases. An additional study for the infection with HTLV-I revealed that the seropositivity for anti-HTLV-I antibodies was 11 (17.5%) of 63 patients with distinct uveitis entities and 38 (30.4%) of 125 patients with etiologically undefined uveitis, indicating no significant difference in HTLV-I infection between the two groups. The prevalence of HAU was estimated to be 8.8 x 10(-5).
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Kagoshima University Faculty of Medicine.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nakao
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ohba
mesh_terms: D015490:HTLV-I Infections / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D014605:Uveitis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology