Uvea Clinic

Since its establishment in 2004, the uveitis clinic of Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology (TIO) is giving service uninterruptedly six days a week till date. It receives a large number of uveitis and scleritis patients from across the country and some from the neighboring countries. TIO being a tertiary referral center, this clinic caters to the referred cases from its community eye centers/hospitals, other eye hospitals/institutes, rheumatologists and physicians in Nepal and from neighboring country like India, Bhutan and Bangladesh. 

It is run by a two uveitis specialists along with the help of supporting staffs. Following are the various activities of this clinic:

• Treatment of all kinds of uveitis along with scleritis, sclerouveitis, keratouveitis, sclerokeratouveitis, and scleral abscess cases, both adults and children.
• Medical management of all kinds of endophthalmitis cases of all age group. Surgical management of the cases are done independently or sometimes in co-operation with the retina unit.
• Management of outbreak of Seasonal hyperacute panuveitis ( SHAPU)/Seasonal endophthalmitis
• Surgical management of complicated cataract cases ( adults and in children of 8 years or above)

In terms of uveitis cases, the specialists are skilled at managing Acute anterior uveitis related to seronegative spondyloarthopathies, Herpetic uveitis, Tubercular uveitis, Sarcoid uveitis, Lepromatous uveitis, Toxoplasma retinitis, Torocara retinitis, Syphilitic uveitis, Vogt Koyanagi Harada’s disease, Behcet’s disease, Sympathetic ophthalmia, CMV retinopathy, Acute retinal necrosis and many other rare conditions. Scleritis/sclerouveitis  due to various infective and non-infective causes are also managed by the specialists. 

The specialists stay in close network with rheumatologists, skin-venerology specialists, pulmonologists, and infectious disease specialists for the holistic management of uveitis and scleritis cases. 
Complication of uveitis/scleritis like glaucoma, corneal deconpensation, scleral melting, retinal detachments are dealt by the specialists of the concerned units at TIO. 

The Uveitis specialists are keen on subjecting patients to undergo only a tailored list of investigations for the diagnostic purpose. Most of the required investigations are available at TIO microbiology and pathology laboratory itself. Other than the laboratory, various other supportive tools in the diagnosis and management of uveitis cases are available at TIO are laser-flare photometer, ocular (anterior segment and fundus) photography, fundus fluorescein angiography (FFA), indocyanine green angiography and optical coherence tomography (OCT).

However, for radiological investigations only when required, patients are referred to a near-by general hospital.
Besides steroid therapy, various immunosuppressive therapies, laser therapy and intraocular anti-VEGF injections are also provided by the uveitis clinic.