Sociodemographic and Visual Outcomes of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis Uveitis: IRIS ® Registry Study.

Purpose: Understanding sociodemographic factors associated with poor visual outcomes in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis-associated uveitis may help inform practice patterns.
Patients and Methods: Retrospective cohort study on patients <18 years old who were diagnosed with both juvenile idiopathic arthritis and uveitis based on International Classification of Diseases tenth edition codes in the Intelligent Research in Sight Registry through December 2020. Surgical history was extracted using current procedural terminology codes. The primary outcome was incidence of blindness (20/200 or worse) in at least one eye in association with sociodemographic factors. Secondary outcomes included cataract and glaucoma surgery following uveitis diagnosis. Hazard ratios were calculated using multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards models.
Results: Median age of juvenile idiopathic arthritis-associated uveitis diagnosis was 11 (Interquartile Range: 8 to 15). In the Cox models adjusting for sociodemographic and insurance factors, the hazard ratios of best corrected visual acuity 20/200 or worse were higher in males compared to females (HR 2.15; 95% CI: 1.45-3.18), in Black or African American patients compared to White patients (2.54; 1.44-4.48), and in Medicaid-insured patients compared to commercially-insured patients (2.23; 1.48-3.37).
Conclusion: Sociodemographic factors and insurance coverage were associated with varying levels of risk for poor visual outcomes in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis-associated uveitis.
Competing Interests: Dr. A. Lee reports support from the US Food and Drug Administration, grants from Amazon, Carl Zeiss Meditec, iCareWorld, Meta, Microsoft, Novartis, NVIDIA, Regeneron, Santen Pharmaceutical, and Topcon, personal fees from Alcon, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech/Roche, Gyroscope, Janssen, Johnson & Johnson, and Verana Health outside of the submitted work, and nonfinancial support from Microsoft, Optomed, and Heidelberg, outside of the submitted work. Dr. C. Lee reports personal fees from Boehringer Ingelheim. This article does not reflect the opinions of the Food and Drug Administration. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.
(© 2024 Davidson et al.)