[Uveitis and chronic intestinal inflammatory diseases: three case studies]

The most frequent inflammatory chronic bowel diseases are Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis, which present extra intestinal manifestations, particularly, arthritis and ocular inflammation. Anterior uveitis is the main ocular manifestation and remains exclusively an inflammatory process.

[corrected] We report three cases of bilateral uveitis, with ulcerative colitis in two cases and Crohn disease in the last case. In the two first cases, uveitis occurred after 8 years of bowel disease which was stabilized by sulfasalazopyridine and 6 months after bowel surgery. In the third case, the patient was followed for Crohn disease for 3 years with anterior uveitis relapse concomitant to bowel relapse.

In the two first cases, there was no recurrence after corticosteroids topical therapy. In the third case, topical and systemic corticosteroids provided adequate control of ocular inflammation, but the follow-up was marked by pupillary and inflammatory glaucoma, which required gonio-surgery.

Anterior uveitis is the most frequent ocular manifestation in chronic inflammatory bowel disease: approximately 1.9-4.9% in Crohn disease and 1.6% in ulcerative colitis. The uveitis course is synchronous with bowel relapse and its treatment requires anti-inflammatory agents. Nevertheless, in severe relapse, recovery is obtained after the resection of the entire involved bowel segment.