Herpetic Anterior Uveitis Multicentre Longitudinal Study (The UVHER Project). Baseline Characteristics.

PURPOSE: The aim of the UVHER project is to evaluate the risk of development of optic nerve damage in patients with herpetic anterior uveitis (AU) prospectively followed over 2 years. Herein, we described the baseline characteristics. METHODS: This is a multicentre, prospective study. An aqueous humour tap was performed. Only patients with a positive PCR were included. Clinical characteristics, optical coherence tomography (OCT) parameters and visual field (VF) abnormalities were registered. RESULTS: 27 patients were included: 18 Herpes Simplex (HSV), one Varicella Zoster (VVZ), and 8Cytomegalovirus (CMV). Patients with HSV-AU had severe inflammation, iris atrophy and corneal involvement. In patients with CMV-AU, less inflammation and medium-to-large keratic precipitates were observed. OCT showed a thinner RNFL and GCL in CMV-AU patients in comparison to HSV patients. VF showed abnormalities in six cases. CONCLUSIONS: Patients in the UVHER cohort showed the typical clinical manifestations of herpetic AU. In CMV patients, optic nerve damage was observed at baseline, and in HSV patients, inflammation was more severe.

Ischemic Optic Neuropathy After Administration of a SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine: A Report of 2 Cases.

BACKGROUND Since the start of vaccination efforts against COVID-19, several presumed secondary ocular events have been described. We present 2 cases of non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NA-AION) in patients whose symptoms appeared in the first 2 weeks after administration of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA BNT162b2/Cominarty vaccine. CASE REPORT The first patient was a 53-year-old man who presented visual field disturbance in the right eye 7 days after the first vaccine dose, and who consulted a physician 10 days after the second dose, when he experienced loss of vision in the left eye. After a full examination, bilateral anterior optic disc neuropathy was diagnosed. The second patient was a 65-year-old man who presented anterior optic disc neuropathy 12 days after his first vaccination. In both cases, arteritic origin was ruled out due to absence of systemic symptoms and because of normal levels of C-reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rates. CONCLUSIONS Ischemic optic neuropathy is a rare adverse ocular secondary effect of COVID-19 vaccines. Further basic and clinical research is needed to elucidate the pathogenic mechanisms and better characterize the clinical picture of this entity.