SUMMARY
Purpose:
To evaluate the incidence of uveitis on patients with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) from the Hospital das Clínicas, Faculty of Medicine, USP, the frequency of uveitis in the different JRA subtypes and risk factors for the development of uveitis.
Methods:
160 patients, 16 years old, with a diagnosis of JRA were were submitted to complete ophthalmologic examination. Fifty-two presented the systemic, 35 the polyarticular and 73 the pauciarticular onset.
Results:
5.7% patients with systemic onset showed positive antinuclear antibody (ANA) and 2.2%, positive rheumatoid factor (RF); in those with polyarticular onset, positive ANA and RF were observed in 8.6yo; in those with pauciarticular onset, ANA was positive in 25.8% and RF was not positive in any of them. Uveitis was not observed in systemic onset JRA. Regarding polyarticular onset, bilateral iridocyclitis was observed in 5.7% of the patients, and cataract and band keratopathy in both eyes developed in 1 case. Iridocyclitis was seen in 6.8% of the patients with pauciarticular onset, being unilateral in 1 case, and bilateral in 4 cases, and cataract developed in 1 case.
Conclusions:
Uveitis was observed in 4.4%o of the patients, specially in those with pauciarticular onset. Positive ANA and age at onset of the arthritis were considered risk factors of developing uveitis.
Keywords:
Arthritis; Juvenile rheumatoid; Uveitis; Anterior uveitis; Antinuclear factors