TITLE:
Biological agents in the treatment of uveitis
AUTHORS:
Maria Pia Paroli, Alessandro Abbouda, Irene Abicca, Alfredo Sapìa, Marino Paroli
KEYWORDS:
Biologics; Uveitis
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology,
Vol.4 No.8B,
August
8,
2013
ABSTRACT: Inflammatory uveitis is a difficult condition to
treat. Recently, a new class of drugs obtained by a biological process and
therefore defined as “biologics” has been successfully used in the treatment of
immunemediated rheumatic diseases. These drugs target different
pro-inflammatory cytokines including tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-1 and
interleukin-6, or immune effector cells including B and T lymphocytes. Their
use has been then extended to different forms of uveitis resistant to standard
therapy in small uncontrolled trials, with general and unexpected efficacy.
The present review analyzes the literature on treatment of uveitis with the
biologics currently available for the treatment of inflammatory rheumatic
diseases. We used PubMed search engine as the main source of information. Among
the papers included in the reference list, a particular emphasis was given on
articles published during the last 5 years.