Visual outcomes and factors predictive of visual loss in Behcet's disease in Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Oman

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the visual outcomes and associated factors in Omani patients with Behcet's disease (BD). This is a descriptive retrospective analytical cohort study. All Omani patients of age 5-65 years with a confirmed clinical diagnosis of BD having ocular manifestation who attended the Rheumatology and Ophthalmology clinics at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Oman from January 2018 to October 2020. The demographic data, clinical findings, systemic, and ocular examination of all the recruited patients were retrieved from the electronic patient record. The study included 31 male and 16 female participants. The median age is 29.7 ± 10.6 years. Most patients with ocular manifestations presented in the third decade of their life (21-30 years' age). The most common ocular manifestations in our study were uveitis (91.5%) followed by vitritis (40.4%), and retinal vasculitis (36.2%). The most common ocular complications in order of frequency were cataract (27.7%), posterior synechiae (23.4%), and cystoid macular edema (21.2%). In this study, 22.7% of the patients with BD-related ocular manifestations reported severe visual loss. In addition, when adding the patients with severe visual loss secondary to complications such as secondary glaucoma and optic nerve atrophy, the severe visual loss cumulatively reported being 50% for both groups. The clinical characteristics of ocular manifestations in BD in Oman are similar to data from studies that have been conducted in other countries. However, our study found that the severity of ocular manifestations was more dominant among females. This study finding can be helpful for clinicians to predict ocular manifestations of BD to plan a timely follow-up and subsequently prevent further severe complications or visual loss.