title: Treatment and non-treatment related ocular manifestations in patients with chronic hepatitis B or C.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Worldwide, 480-520 million people are chronically infected with hepatitis B or C virus. In addition to their effects in the liver, chronic hepatitis viral infections may have serious extra hepatic manifestations. These manifestations have been more widely studied in chronic HCV infection, where they are more frequently described, but they have been also reported chronic HBV infection.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Among those, of great interest are the ocular manifestations caused by the HBV or HCV infection or induced by chronic hepatitis therapy. These we attempted to review.
  
  
  METHODS
  A PubMed search was conducted using the terms hepatitis, ocular, eye.
  
  
  RESULTS
  This article describes the ocular symptoms related to HBV and HCV hepatitis such as xerophthalmia, Mooren's ulcer and retinopathy as well as other rare manifestations caused by either the infection or the therapy.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The ocular manifestations of HCV infections best supported by the literature include a dry eye syndrome similar to Sjögren's syndrome, and ischemic retinopathy caused by either HCV-induced vasculitis or treatment with interferon. There are no serious ocular manifestations of HBV infection other than dry eye syndrome. Special consideration should be held for possible connection between HBV vaccine and uveitis.
authors: Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece. vasileios.theopistos@gmail.com  
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Tsoumani
authors: V
authors: V
authors: Theopistos
authors: K
authors: K
authors: Katsanos
authors: I
authors: I
authors: Asproudis
authors: E V
authors: EV
authors: Tsianos
mesh_terms: D015352:Dry Eye Syndromes / Q000628:therapy; D005128:Eye Diseases / Q000628:therapy*; D019694:Hepatitis B, Chronic / Q000150:complications*; D019698:Hepatitis C, Chronic / Q000150:complications*; D006801:Humans