Pediatric uveitis in southern Turkey.

Uveitis in the pediatric population is not so common, and the etiology is different from adults. In the present study the charts of the patients with onset of uveitis at 16 years of age or younger were reviewed in order to analyze the etiology in pediatric patients with uveitis, and to compare the results with other studies carried out on different populations. The charts of 90 cases, followed at the Uvea-Immunology Clinic of the Cukurova University Medical Faculty Department of Ophthalmology, between January 1987 and February 1996 were reviewed retrospectively. There were 47 girls, 43 boys, aged 5-20 (13.64 +/- 4.24) in the study group. The average age at onset of uveitis was 12.20 +/- 4.81, and the follow-up period was 9-98 months (21.80 +/- 11.13). Of the 90 patients 31 (34.4%) had panuveitis, 30 (33.3%) had anterior uveitis, 21 (23.3%) had posterior uveitis and 8 (8.9%) had intermediate uveitis. Only 2 (9.5%) of the patients with posterior uveitis were considered idiopathic after extensive laboratory and clinical work-up, whereas idiopathic cases constituted 48.4% of panuveitis, and 46.7% of anterior uveitis cases. Of the 90 patients an associated condition could be found in only 59 (65.6%) patients. Of these 59 patients 23 had toxoplasmosis (39%), which constituted the most common associated condition in this study. The second most common underlying cause was Behçet's disease (17%), followed by pars planitis (13.6%), Fuchs' heterochromic iridocyclitis (8.5%), JRA (5.1%), leukemia (5.1%), and herpetic eye disease (5.1%). There were single cases with Reiter, toxocariasis, traumatic uveitis, and sympathetic ophthalmia. Environmental, cultural and genetic factors may be accountable for the differences in relative frequencies of some of the associated conditions between our findings and those of previously published studies in patients with pediatric uveitis.