[Ocular syphilis: A retrospective study of 27 cases in Nantes University Hospital (France) from 2000 to 2013]

Syphilis may manifest as several distinct ophthalmological forms. The main objective of our study was to describe the diagnostic, therapeutic data and prognosis of ocular syphilis.

We retrospectively analysed the cases of syphilitic uveitis diagnosed in the University Hospital of Nantes between 2000 and 2013.

Twenty-seven patients were included in our study. Their mean age was 53.1 years. Bilateral uveitis was the most frequent clinical presentation (67%). The average diagnostic delay after the first symptoms was 2.8 months. Three patients (11%) presented with an anterior uveitis and 24 (89%) with a posterior uveitis, panuveitis or papillitis. The most frequent clinical signs were papillar lesion (44%), multifocal choroiditis (33%) and chorio-retinitis (37%). Ninety-three percent of the patients were treated with benzathine penicillin intravenously, one patient was treated by intramuscular penicillin injections and another by ceftriaxone intramuscularly. Ocular manifestations alone were sufficient to make the diagnosis of syphilis in 25 patients (93%) and of HIV seroconversion in 3 patients (11%). Forty-one percent of the patients benefited from an adjuvant therapy with corticosteroids. The treatment allowed a visual improvement of -0.48 log MAR (P<0.0001) with an average reduction of retinal central thickness of 70.2 μm (P=0.33).

We did not find a significant difference neither in management nor in results between the HIV seropositive and HIV seronegative groups. Others studies remains controversial about this aspect. The increased frequency of ocular manifestation as well as the increase of syphilis makes systematic screening in uveitis of a great value.