As per a recently concluded study, Uveitis patients can be treated with doses of steroids in order to reduce inflammation to a significant extent. The study was undertaken by UTMB Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Assistant Professor Kota Ramana.

Scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston revealed that a potential new therapy in the form of steroids can be implemented to cure Uveitis.

From ScienceDaily.com:

“The only thing a clinician can do now for uveitis is to treat the patient with steroids to reduce inflammation,” said UTMB biochemistry and molecular biology assistant professor Kota Ramana, senior author of a paper on the discovery published in the October issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science. “But steroids have serious side effects, and you can’t use them for a long period of time.”

That’s not much of a problem when uveitis is produced by an infection that can be killed off in a few days with antibiotics, UTMB biochemistry and molecular biology professor and paper co-author Satish Srivastava explained. But if the source of the uveitis is an autoimmune disease like arthritis or lupus, in which the immune system mistakenly generates chronic inflammation in response to substances naturally present in the body, the lack of an alternative to steroids creates great difficulties for patients.

Uveitis is an inflammation of the uvea, which is a tissue layer that lies just underneath outer surface of the eyeballs and includes the iris. It is considered to be the reason behind 5-15 percent of blindness cases in the United States and a greater number in the developing countries due to lack of health care facilities & a greater incidence of infectious ailments.

Tags:  chronic inflammation, infectious diseases, Steroids, uveitis

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