THE COLLABORATIVE OCULAR TUBERCULOSIS STUDY (COTS)-1: A Multinational Review of 251 Patients With Tubercular Retinal Vasculitis

Purpose Tubercular retinal vasculitis (TRV) is a heterogeneous disease that can be difficult to manage because of nonspecific presentation and limitations of confirmatory tests for tuberculosis. This is a big data analysis on phenotypes and treatment outcomes for TRV. Methods Multicentre retrospective study of patients with TRV between January 2004 and December 2014 and a minimum follow-up of 1 year. Results Two hundred and fifty-one patients with TRV with a mean age of 38.9 ± 14.4 years (range, 9-86 years) were included. The patients were predominantly males (n = 167/251; 66.5%) of Asian ethnicity (n = 174/246; 70.7%), and geographical origin (n = 137/251; 54.6%). Most patients had features of occlusive type of RV (n = 113/185; 61.1%) except Caucasians (n = 11; 28.2%). There was no significant difference in treatment failure whether patients received antitubercular therapy (ATT) (P = 0.29), although treatment failure was less frequent in patients who received ATT (13.6%; n = 31/228) compared with those who did not (21.7%, n = 5/23). Less treatment failures were observed in patients with occlusive type RV who received ATT; however, this was not significant on survival analysis (P = 0.09). Treatment with ATT was associated with higher failure rates in patients of Hispanic and African American race and those with TRV associated with panuveitis (compared with posterior uveitis). Conclusion In this multinational study of TRV, there was no significant therapeutic effect of ATT. However, a definitive conclusion about the role of ATT could not be made because of a few patients who did not receive ATT. Because this is a retrospective study with a limited 1-year follow-up, the effect of ATT may have been overestimated (or underestimated) in the duration of follow-up.