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Published on: September 20, 2018
Sympathetic ophthalmia in HIV infection. A clinicopathological case report
Miguel A de la Fuente1, Nicolas Alejandre, Patricia Ferrer
1Department of Ophthalmology, Fundacion Jimenez Diaz University Hospital, Avda Reyes Catolicos 2, 28040, Madrid, Spain, madelafuente@fjd.es.
Background:
The purpose of this study is to report a case of sympathetic ophthalmia (SO) in an HIV-infected patient on treatment with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) 9 years after a penetrating eye injury.
Methods:
The study utilized clinical course and histopathological findings.
Results:
Histopathology of the enucleated right eye showed a predominantly lymphocytic inflammatory infiltration with some plasma cells and epithelioid granulomata in the choroid, suggesting the diagnosis of SO.
Conclusions:
SO seems to be driven by T lymphocytes, specifically by the CD4 subset of T cells. HIV-infected individuals suffer a decline in CD4 T cell numbers, leading to an acquired immunodeficiency that could halt the development of the inflammatory reaction responsible for SO. The restoration of the CD4 counts by HAART therapy makes HIV-infected individuals as susceptible to SO as non-infected ones. To the best of our knowledge, there are no cases of SO in HIV-infected patients reported in the literature.
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