Infectious Panuveitis

Abstract

Panuveitis is an anatomical classification, denoting inflammation of the whole uvea tract, with simultaneous involvement of the vitreous and retina. While infectious causes of panuveitis include tuberculosis (TB); toxoplasmosis; viral, fungal, or bacterial etiologies; and several noninfectious diseases such as sarcoidosis, Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada (VKH) disease, and Behcet’s disease also cause panuveitis. Less common causes include toxocariasis, syphilitic uveitis and Ebola virus panuveits. Due to a widespread involvement of the entire uveal tract, it carries a significant ocular morbidity as compared to other anatomical types of uveitis. Hence, it needs an early recognition of the extent of inflammation to be able to target specific laboratory investigations for initiating timely treatment. Treatment of the causative infection is the mainstay of therapy with corticosteroids (both systemic as well as topical) as the adjunctive anti-inflammatory therapy.