The Sight Loss and Vision Priority Setting Partnership Survey in 2012 asked patients, carers and eye health professionals to identify unanswered questions about the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of sight loss and eye conditions that they wished to see answered. A number of Birdshot Uveitis Society members took part in this survey and raised many interesting questions. In total, 2,200 people responded to the survey generating 4,461 questions. The questions were checked, allocated to 12 different eye disease/condition categories and similar submissions were combined. At a workshop held on 16 April 2013 attended by patients and eye health professionals the following top 10 priorities for Ocular Inflammatory Diseases research were identified:
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1. What are the most effective treatments for ocular and orbital inflammatory diseases? |
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2. What causes thyroid eye disease? |
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3. Can the severity of ocular and orbital inflammatory disease in an individual be predicted? |
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4. Is it possible to prevent further occurrences of retinal damage caused by toxoplasmosis? |
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5. What causes birdshot retinopathy? |
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6. Why does disease burn out in patients with ocular and orbital inflammatory diseases? |
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7. Can early detection methods be developed for ocular and orbital inflammatory diseases? |
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8. What medications best prevent the development of eye disease in Behcets? |
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9. What causes scleritis? |
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10. Can diet or lifestyle changes prevent uveitis from developing? |
A full report regarding all 12 categories will be published later in the year.
Birdshot Uveitis Society was represented at this workshop and looks forward to the resulting research which will hopefully one day tell us why we get Birdshot Uveitis. We believe that understanding the causes is key to helping us get better more targeted treatments.
Questions 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 10 all apply to people with Birdshot Uveitis.