Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is often associated with severe chronic anterior uveitis (CAU), and immunosuppressive therapy may be required. In this study, the value of cyclosporine A (CsA) as monotherapy or as combination therapy for treating uveitis was studied in a large cohort of JIA children.
Multicentre retrospective study including 82 JIA children (girls n=60) suffering from unilateral or bilateral (n=55) CAU. The indication for CsA was active uveitis, although patients were on topical or systemic corticosteroids, MTX, or other immunosuppressive drugs.
Inactivity of uveitis during the entire treatment period (mean 3.9 years) was obtained with CsA monotherapy in 6 of 25 (24%) patients, but more often when CsA was combined with the immunosuppressives (35/72 patients; 48.6%, P=0.037), or MTX (18/37 patients, 48.6%, P=0.065), which had already been given. With CsA (mean dosage 2.9 mg/kg), systemic immunosuppressive drugs and steroids could be reduced by >or=50% (n=19) or topical steroids reduced to <or=2 drops/eye/day (n=40) in selected patients. Pre-existing cystoid macular oedema did not resolve under CsA treatment in any of the patients. In nine patients (11%), CsA was discontinued because of systemic hypertension (n=1), elevated creatinine levels (n=3), or other adverse effects (n=5).
These observations suggest that CsA has limited value as a second-line immunosuppressive drug for the treatment of JIA-associated CAU. The efficacy was better as the combination therapy in patients not responding to other immunosuppressives (eg, MTX) than the systemic monotherapy.