Among numerous complications pertaining to the internal organs in the course of inflammatory systemic diseases of the connective tissue, including juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), eye lesions are of considerable significance. The aim of the study was to determine changes in the eyes in JIA children and adolescents.
The study included 76 children with JIA. The age of patients during the first ophthalmologic examination ranged from 3 to 18 years. The children were treated in the Outpatients' Rheumatologic Department at the University Hospital No. 4 in Lodz and Department of Pediatric Ophthalmology at the Medical University of Lodz. A control group consisted of 60 healthy children. In this study the time of observation was 18 months during which the children and adolescents were subjected to complex ophthalmologic examinations in the intervals of 9 months.
The presence of various ocular changes were significantly more frequently found in children with JIA. The difference appeared to be statistically significant between the group of children with JIA and the control group, in the range of such diseases as conjunctivitis and pigment changes in the retina.
In JIA patients ophthalmologic lesions are more frequent than in healthy children, especially it concerns conjunctivitis (in 34% of children) and pigment changes in the retina (in 14% of children).