Ocular manifestations of systemic infections

Ocular involvement, mainly uveitis or retinochoroiditis, is common in various systemic diseases, such as endogenous endophthalmitis, Lyme disease, human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I infection, toxoplasmosis, and toxocariasis. Recent progress, especially in laboratory microbiologic testing, has enabled us to reliably diagnose many formerly idiopathic intraocular inflammatory diseases. A group of systemic infectious diseases, including those discussed here, are implicated as a body of emerging or re-emerging diseases that have appeared in the past two decades and are thought to have a close relation with global socioenvironmental changes. This paper discusses recent clinical and experimental studies of the most important systemic infectious diseases that affect the eye.