COVID-19 and immunosuppressive therapy in ocular inflammatory disease, a telemedicine survey
Nazanin Ebrahimiadib1 *, Kaveh Fadakar1 , Hamid Riazi-esfahani1
- TUMS
Abstract: To evaluate the risk and morbidity of COVID-19 infections in patients using immunomodulatory agents.
Methods: telemedicinal approach, cross sectional observation
Results: A total of 694 patients with files in uveitis clinic of a tertiary-eye hospital was evaluated in this survey. Underlying systemic disease such as diabetes, hypertension, hepatic, renal or hematologic disorders were not found to be a risk factor (P=0.389). Due to continued effect of IMT, the patient who were receiving medication within past 6 month was considered IMT positive. Considering such definition, three patients in the confirmed group was on IMT, one on biologic and two on steroids, and these factors were not found to be significant for acquiring COVID-19 compared with healthy subjects. (P=0.942, 0.470 and 0.93 respectively). All patients with confirmed COVID-19 wore mask regularly during the pandemic. History of travel was found in 2 patients (25%) with confirmed COVID-19, which did not significantly differ from 75 patients (11.3%) in the group without COVID-19 (P=0.227). A significantly higher percentage of patients with confirmed COVID-19 (6 patients, 75%) compared to no COVID-19 group (10 patients 1.5%) reported close contact with a known infected person (P<0.001).
Conclusion: Our study is the first one to report a real-world data on a relatively large sample size in uveitis patients. Our finding is compatible with expert opinion that immunomodulatory therapy can be maintained. The population in uveitis clinic were relatively young and followed sanitary measures. A major limitation of this study is lack of RT-PCT test for every suspect subject. Nevertheless, if some of milder forms of infection were missed, we showed that none of the COVID-19 infected cases lead to significant morbidity.
