Study finds unusual link between Chronic Kidney Disease and Uveitis

A new study shows that patients with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) were shown to be more likely to develop uveitis. The presence of CKD was found to be an extra important factor in the development of uveitis in individuals over the age of 18 who had hypertension, diabetes, or hyperlipidemia.

Uveitis is described as inflammation of the uvea, the main vascular layer of the eye. It is classified into three types: anterior, intermediate, and posterior uveitis. Anterior uveitis is defined as inflammation of the iris, intermediate uveitis is defined as inflammation of the ciliary body and vitreous, and posterior uveitis is defined as retinitis and choroiditis.

The following study was conducted by Chun-Ju Lin and team with the objective to analyze if people with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are more likely to develop uveitis. The findings of this study was published online in the journal of Ocular Immunology and Inflammation on 14th October, 2021.

The information was gathered from the Taiwan National Health Insurance system and includes individuals who were newly diagnosed with CKD between 2000 and 2012. The endpoint of interest was a uveitis diagnosis.

30,256 CKD patients and 121,024 matched comparisons were analyzed. CKD patients were found to have a significantly higher cumulative uveitis incidence. Through multivariate Cox regression analysis, the CKD group was found to have higher risk of developing uveitis (adjusted hazard ratio 1.51). After stratified by gender, age, and comorbidities (hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia), the increased risk of uveitis in CKD patients remained significant.

Reference:

Lin, C.-J., Tien, P.-T., Lai, C.-T., Hsia, N.-Y., Chang, C.-H., Bair, H., Chen, H.-S., Yang, Y.-C., Lin, J.-M., Chen, W.-L., & Tsai, Y.-Y. (2021). Chronic Kidney Disease as A Potential Risk Factor for Uveitis: A 13-Year Nationwide Population-Based Cohort Study in Taiwan. In Ocular Immunology and Inflammation (pp. 1–7). Informa UK Limited. https://doi.org/10.1080/09273948.2021.1976213