Association of tuberculosis with vasculitis retinae.

Retinal vasculitis is one of the common causes of blindness among the young adult in this subcontinent. Causes of retinal vasculitis are variable and it is one of the common ocular manifestations of tuberculosis. This case control study was carried out on 45 patients with retinal vasculitis of different age groups. All the patients were purposively selected from the department of ophthalmology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University and National Institute of Ophthalmology Dhaka. This study reveals that vasculitis retinae is a disease of younger age group (68.9%). Mean+/-SD age of cases were 31.84+/-10.82 years. It occurs more in male (75.6%) and male female ratio is 3.09:1, single or both eye may involve. Retinal vasculitis occurs more in middle socio-economic status persons (62.2%). It present with floaters (58.9%), hazy media (60%), vitreous haemorrhage (57.8%) and retinal haemorrhage (42.2%). All 45 subjects both cases and control groups were tested with Mantoux test. 18(40%) subjects of cases and 13(28.9%) subjects of control group were found positive Mantoux test. It was observed that the association of tuberculosis with vasculitis retinae is not statistically significant. As tuberculosis is common in this country, further specific and extensive study over a longer period of time is necessary for understanding the role of tuberculosis in retinal vasculitis patients.