• African health sciences · Sep 2015

    Comparative Study

    Polymerase chain reaction to search for Herpes viruses in uveitic and healthy eyes: a South African perspective.

    • Debbie Laaks, Derrick P Smit, and Justin Harvey.
    • Division of Ophthalmology, Department of Surgical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.
    • Afr Health Sci. 2015 Sep 1; 15 (3): 748-54.

    ObjectiveTo analyse aqueous polymerase chain reaction (PCR) results in patients diagnosed with undifferentiated uveitis and determine prevalence of herpesviridae in non-uveitic patients undergoing routine cataract extraction.DesignRetrospective comparative case series and prospective cross-sectional study.Subjects72 patients with idiopathic uveitis and 57 surgical patients.MethodsDiagnostic aqueous paracentesis with PCR testing for 6 herpes viridae in uveitic patients. Anterior chamber paracentesis immediately pre-operative in the prospective arm, with PCR testing.ResultsIn the retrospective review we had a 47.2% positive PCR yield. Data analysis revealed a statistically significant correlation between a positive yield and being HIV+ (p=0.018); between an EBV+ yield and being HIV+ (p= 0.026) and a CMV+ result and being HIV+ (p=0.032). Posterior uveitis (p=0.014) and symptoms <30 days (p= 0.0014) had a statistically significant yield. In the prospective arm of the study: all 57 patients were HIV- and all aqueous samples were negative for the 6 herpesviridae.ConclusionWe recommend PCR testing for Herpesviridae as a safe second line test for patients with undifferentiated uveitis. We were unable to establish prevalence and suggest that the idea of a commensal herpes virus is unlikely if the blood-ocular barrier is intact.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…