THE COLLABORATIVE OCULAR TUBERCULOSIS STUDY (COTS)-1

<jats:sec> <jats:title>Purpose:</jats:title> <jats:p>Tubercular retinal vasculitis (TRV) is a heterogeneous disease that can be difficult to manage because of nonspecific presentation and limitations of confirmatory tests for tuberculosis. This is a big data analysis on phenotypes and treatment outcomes for TRV.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Methods:</jats:title> <jats:p>Multicentre retrospective study of patients with TRV between January 2004 and December 2014 and a minimum follow-up of 1 year.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Results:</jats:title> <jats:p>Two hundred and fifty-one patients with TRV with a mean age of 38.9 ± 14.4 years (range, 9–86 years) were included. The patients were predominantly males (n = 167/251; 66.5%) of Asian ethnicity (n = 174/246; 70.7%), and geographical origin (n = 137/251; 54.6%). Most patients had features of occlusive type of RV (n = 113/185; 61.1%) except Caucasians (n = 11; 28.2%). There was no significant difference in treatment failure whether patients received antitubercular therapy (ATT) (<jats:italic toggle="yes">P</jats:italic> = 0.29), although treatment failure was less frequent in patients who received ATT (13.6%; n = 31/228) compared with those who did not (21.7%, n = 5/23). Less treatment failures were observed in patients with occlusive type RV who received ATT; however, this was not significant on survival analysis (<jats:italic toggle="yes">P</jats:italic> = 0.09). Treatment with ATT was associated with higher failure rates in patients of Hispanic and African American race and those with TRV associated with panuveitis (compared with posterior uveitis).</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Conclusion:</jats:title> <jats:p>In this multinational study of TRV, there was no significant therapeutic effect of ATT. However, a definitive conclusion about the role of ATT could not be made because of a few patients who did not receive ATT. Because this is a retrospective study with a limited 1-year follow-up, the effect of ATT may have been overestimated (or underestimated) in the duration of follow-up.</jats:p> </jats:sec>