short-term vs long-term systemic corticosteroid in ocular toxoplasmosis

purpose: to compare the effects of short-tem and long-term systemic corticosteroids in the treatment of confirmed ocular toxoplasmosis. methods: this randomized comparative clinical trial was performed on 69 patients with confirmed active ocular toxoplasmosis with typical clinical manifestations. the subjects were randomly assigned to receive either 10 days (group a, 33 cases) or 4-6 weeks (group b, 36 cases) of systemic corticosteroids in addition to classic antibiotic therapy. all patients were visited and followed weekly until complete improvement of vision. mean visual acuity, inflammatory cell count in the vitreous, lesion size and severity of the condition were compared between the two groups. results: there was no statistically significant difference between the two group, regarding mean values of visual acuity in logmar (before; group a: 0.24±0.6, group b: 0.28±0.07, p= 0.43 and after; group a: 0.11±0.08, group b: 0.06±0.07, p= 0.09), vitreal inflammatory cell count (before; group a: 1.8±0.56, group b: 1.9±0.60, p= 0.45 and after; group a: 1.5±0.65, group b: 1.5±0.5, p= 0.94), and size of the lesions in disc diameter (before; group a: 0.94±0.37, group b: 1.03±0.37, p= 0.49 and after; group a: 0.94±0.44, group b: 1.12±0.38, p= 0.4). conclusion: the study revealed that there is no significant difference between the effects of short-term and long-term systemic corticosteroid therapy in the treatment of ocular toxoplasmosis. it is reasonable to perform an equivalence trial study on this issue.