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The COVID-19 pandemic has been a rapidly emerging global health concern since December 2019. Unprecedented efforts have been made to produce vaccines, which have proven to be successful. This is a narrative review of the known ocular side effects related to the COVID-19 vaccines. Relevant literature was identified up to January 2022. Herein, reports of several side effects after immunization with COVID-19 vaccines, such as corneal graft rejection, ocular herpes simplex virus reactivation, scleritis, anterior and intermediate uveitis, multiple evanescent white dot syndrome, acute zonal occult outer retinopathy, panuveitis, multifocal choroiditis, toxoplasma retinochoroiditis, central serous retinopathy, branch/central retinal vein occlusion, paracentral acute middle maculopathy, arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, optic neuritis, third nerve palsy, superior ophthalmic vein thrombosis, and Tolosa–Hunt syndrome, are reviewed and presented. Our knowledge regarding vaccination-related adverse events during the COVID-19 pandemic is growing. Ocular side effects are very rare overall and can often be treatable and preventable. Vaccinations remain strongly recommended by experts due to their efficacy in decreasing the disease burden. It is of note that establishing a casual relationship between vaccines and side effects is not possible yet and the possibility of coincidence should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Behcet's disease (BD) is a rare vasculitis that results in multi-organ inflammatory disease. At-risk populations are most prevalent in the Middle East and East Asia. Clinical data on BD in Western countries, especially in the United States, are scarce. We have compared clinical patterning of BD vasculitis in two geographically defined patient cohorts in the Western United States and Iran. Methods: Comparative analysis of a retrospective cohort of 56 patients with BD evaluated at Stanford University Hospital between 2000 and 2016 and a cohort of 163 patients from the BD Registry at Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Clinical, demographic, laboratory, and treatment data were available. Comparisons were performed using descriptive statistics, Student's t-test, and χ2-test. Results: The Stanford patients with BD were significantly younger at disease onset, had a higher proportion of females, and had longer disease duration than Iranian patients with BD. Genital ulcers, skin, joint, neurological, vascular, cardiopulmonary manifestations were all significantly more common in the Stanford cohort and 38% of Stanford patients had four or more organ systems involved compared with approximately 10% of Iranian patients. In contrast, Stanford patients had fewer ocular lesions (Stanford 21.4% vs. Iran 53.4% p<0.05), with the biggest difference seen for retinal vasculitis. Conclusion: Patients with BD from the Western US have a more severe disease course when compared to Iranian patients with BD, as demonstrated by earlier onset and a higher rate of multi-organ involvement. The high risk of Iranian patients with BD developing vasculitis of ocular structures suggests distinct pathomechanisms driving ocular versus extra-ocular BD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genetic ocular diseases are heterogeneous disorders. Recent advances have led to a paradigm shift in the discovery of eye disease-associated genetic variants from linkage and genome-wide association studies to next-generation sequencing-based genome studies. The aim of the current study was to investigate the spectrum of possible vision impairment-related variants in 66 Iranian patients. Whole-exome sequencing (WES) technology followed by bioinformatics analysis, Sanger validation, and co-segregation study were done to find eye disease-causing variants in the patients with vision impairments from Southwest Iran. WES revealed disease-causing variants in 82% of the enrolled cases. WES of understudied cohorts presented an effective strategy for determining pathogenic variants in heterogeneous eye diseases and demonstrated the distribution of causative genetic mutations in Iranian patients. The present data could provide the potential to accelerate genetic screening and a reference for treatment modalities for patients with different types of eye disorders from Southwest Iran., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)