Herbort , Nadia Bouchenaki A . Fuch ’ s Uveitis

In 1906 Ernst Fuchs described a condition including heterochromia, unilateral inflammatory signs such as fine “microgranulomatous” keratic precipitates (KPs) as well as unilateral degenerative signs including iris atrophy and vitreous strands. He called the disease heterochromic cyclitis, more precisely his words were “cyclitis associated with heterochromia”, which would later be known by the eponym of Fuchs’ heterochromic cyclitis or iridocyclitis1 (Figures 1A and B). In the 15th edition of Fuchs’ ophthalmology textbook the full clinical picture is described including the very prominent vitreous involvement and infiltration2 (Figure 2). Because the disease was described in Vienna, in a Caucasian population, the most striking clinical sign, heterochromia, was included in the eponym of the disease called until today Fuchs’ heterochromic cyclitis. It is thought that in the past the disease was probably underdiagnosed in areas where irises are nearly exclusively brown and heterochromia is not part of the disease picture. The disease should therefore simply be named “Fuchs’ uveitis”. The disease pattern with onset mostly from the second to the fifth decade, points towards an external, probably infectious trigger that is at the origin of the subsequently autoentertained disease in persons that are probably genetically predisposed.3 EPIDEMIOLOGICAL ASPECTS