Long term efficacy and tolerance of tacrolimus for the treatment of uveitis

Purpose To evaluate the long-term efficacy and tolerance of tacrolimus for the treatment of uveitis.Design Retrospective case series. Participants Sixty-two consecutive patients with noninfectious uveitis treated with tacrolimus at a single academic referral center between April 2000 and April 2004. Methods A standard data set was obtained from patients' medical records and analyzed according to the recommendations of the Standardization of Uveitis Nomenclature Working Group. Main Outcome Measures (1) Rate of tapering oral prednisone to 10 mg daily, (2) requirement for alternative second-line immunosuppressive therapy, and (3) rate of tacrolimus dose reduction or discontinuation due to side effects. Results In this cohort with well-established ocular inflammation, patients successfully tapered their oral prednisone to 10 mg daily at an average rate of 1.62 per patient-year (PY), with an 85% probability of achieving =30% were also notably uncommon (0.05/PY). Conclusion Tacrolimus's efficacy for the treatment of uveitis is maintained long-term, and its cardiovascular risk profile is excellent.