Risk of Elevated Intraocular Pressure With Difluprednate in Patients With Non-Infectious Uveitis

To evaluate the risk factors associated with clinically important intraocular pressure (IOP) elevation with topical difluprednate treatment in patients with non-infectious uveitis.

Retrospective cohort study.

Fifty-four eyes of 54 patients with non-infectious uveitis treated with topical difluprednate at the current institution were included. Demographics and clinical characteristics of uveitis patients were collected. The main outcome measure was development of clinically important IOP elevation defined as IOP ≥21 mmHg and an increase of ≥10 mmHg from baseline.

A clinically important IOP elevation was observed in 17 patients (31.5%). The mean time to clinically important IOP elevation was 7.4±4.8 weeks (range 3-19). Statistically significant risk factors for incident clinically important IOP elevation were being a child (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 7.85 [95% CI 1.48-41.56], P = .02) and concurrent use of systemic steroids (aHR 5.31 [95% CI 1.18-24.00], P = .03). Patients with concurrent systemic corticosteroids developed clinically important IOP elevation earlier than those without systemic corticosteroid (mean 5.7±3.4 [range 3-14] vs 10.4±5.7 [range 4-19] weeks, P = .05). Incident IOP ≥30 mmHg occurred in 7 patients (13.0%). All patients responded well to the cessation of difluprednate and/or use of topical antiglaucomatous agents and no eyes required glaucoma surgery.

This study demonstrated that clinically important IOP elevation is common in uveitis patients with topical difluprednate treatment. Children and patients with concurrent systemic corticosteroids are at substantial risk of developing clinically important IOP elevation.