Ocular Manifestations in Patients with Extrapulmonary Tuberculosis

Introduction : The study was done to find out the ocular manifestation in patients with extrapulmonary tuberculosis visiting a tertiary eye centre. Methods: A hospital based descriptive observational study was done among newly diagnosed extrapulmonary tuberculosis cases after approval from the institutional review board. After a detailed ocular evaluation, findings including patient demographics, presenting complaints, best corrected visual acuity, colour vision, contrast sensitivity, Goldman visual field and Optical Coherence tomography Retinal nerve fibre layer analysis of the optic nerve head were recorded in a semi-structured proforma. Data were expressed in frequency and percentage. Results: Out of 50 eyes of 25 patients included in the study, the mean age was 26.92±14.2 years (11-73 years). Sixty four percent were female. Two cases had ocular findings at the time of diagnosis. One case of tuberculous lymphadenitis had phlyctenular conjunctivitis and one case of tubercular meningitis had diplopia with right lateral rectus muscle paresis secondary to raised intracranial pressure. All the patients had best corrected visual acuity better than 6/12 at presentation. Color vision was normal in 72% cases in both eyes. Goldman visual field done at presentation were normal in both eyes in 88% cases while retinal nerve fibre layer thickness and contrast sensitivity were normal in all cases. Conclusion: The prevalence of ocular findings in patients with extrapulmonary tuberculosis was 8% in this study. Ocular examination is important in cases with extrapulmonary tuberculosis since a significant number of cases have ocular findings.