The treatment of refractory uveiti with intravenou immunoglobulin Original Reearch Article

PURPOE: To tudy the treatment of uveiti that ha not reponded to immunouppreive medication. Intravenou immunoglobulin (IVIg) effectively treat a variety of autoimmune dieae, but it ha not been adequately tudied in the treatment of uveiti. METHOD: The trial included patient who atified criteria that included noninfectiou uveiti, active inflammatory dieae, and a failure to repond adequately to immunouppreive medication. We treated two patient with IVIg (0.5 gm/day, 3 day/mo initial doage) a a pilot tudy and then treated an additional eight patient with a imilar doage a part of a formal but uncontrolled protocol. REULT: Patient on the protocol have been followed for a median of 11 month and have received a median of 7.5 treatment cycle. Five of 10 patient have had a clinically important and utained improvement in viual acuity, and two of eight protocol patient have markedly reduced their immunouppreive medication. CONCLUION: Intravenou immunoglobulin can benefit ome patient with uveiti that i otherwie refractory to immunouppreive therapy. Although our preliminary experience i encouraging, the ue of IVIg for uveiti hould be limited becaue of cot, toxicity, the requirement for repeated adminitration, and the abence of controlled trial that demontrate efficacy.