What is Pars Planitis?
Pars Planitis is often referred to as Intermediate Uveitis. Patients with Pars Planitis have inflammation in the intermediate part of their eye immediately behind their natural lens in the front part of the vitreous cavity.
What are the symptoms of Pars Planitis?
Patients with Pars Planitis usually do not have frank eye pain. What they do notice though is floaters or “stuff” in their vision. In some cases patients with Pars Planitis may go on to develop cataracts and resultant blurry vision.
Who gets Pars Planitis?
Pars Planitis accounts for approximately 15 % of uveitis in the United States. It is equally prevalent in males and females but is slightly more common in children.
Is Pars Planitis dangerous?
Yes, patients with chronic recurrent inflammation are at risk to develop retinal scarring, cataracts, peripheral retinal detachments and glaucoma. In order to prevent these vision blinding complications patients need alternative therapies.
What Causes Pars Planatis?
The most common cause of Pars Planitis is idiopathic or autoimmune. Other causes and associations include Lyme disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Inflammatory bowel disease, and Sarcoidosis.
How do you treat Pars Planitis?
Historically patients with autoimmune associated Pars Planitis were treated with episodic steroid therapy. However, recent studies have shown that steroids therapy is not a long term option as chronic steroid therapy will inevitably lead to adverse side effects. As a result patients are often advised to either start steroid sparing immunosuppressive therapy or undergo surgical removal of the floaters and laser treatment to the involved pars plana. The cure rate with either strategy can be as high as 85-90 %.
