Incidence, prevalence, and demographic characteristics of ocular cicatricial pemphigoid in Colombia: data from the National Health Registry 2009-2019

AIM: To provide an epidemiological characterization of ocular cicatricial pemphigoid (OCP) in Colombia. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study using SISPRO. We applied the specific code of the International Classification of Diseases for Ocular Pemphigoid, from 2009-2019 to estimate prevalence, incidence, and the demographic status of the disease in Colombia. RESULTS: The estimated average prevalence was 0.22 per 1 000 000 inhabitants, and the estimated average incidence was 0.24 per 1 000 000 inhabitants. With a female predominance of 62.5%, and a male/female ratio of 1:1.6. The group of patients diagnosed with the disease after the age of 80 presented the highest prevalence. The departments with the highest prevalence were Antioquia, Bogotá, and Santander. CONCLUSION: There are important differences between worldwide and Colombian prevalence and incidence data, which may be related to genetic and epigenetic factors, and the possible underdiagnosis of the disease. According to the results, OCP is an extremely rare disease in Colombia. Nevertheless, it is important to encourage awareness of the disease due to its devastating consequences.

Capabilities of cytostatic agents usage in ophthalmology

Antineoplastic drugs are increasingly used in the treatment of diseases of the vision organ. However, practicing ophthalmologists often deal with lack of information about the choice of drugs with anticancer effect, their mechanism of action, dosage, route of administration, potential side effects including their prevention. Mechanism of action is presented for the most commonly used immunosuppressants in ophthalmology (such as metabolic antagonists, alkylation agents, antineoplastic antibiotics, monoclonal antibodies). Efficiency and routes of administration are described for cytostatics used for the treatment of intraocular tumors (retinoblastoma), for prevention and treatment of proliferative syndrome in ophthalmosurgery complicating the surgery for glaucoma, pterigium and refractive corneal procedures, and presenting the pathogenetic basis of proliferative vitreoretinopathy and posterior lens capsule opacity. Possible local side effects of immunosupressors in ocular surgery are presented (epithelial and suture defects, hemorrhagic choroidal detachment, cataract progression, endophthalmitis, malignant glaucoma, toxic effect on the ciliary body, keratopathy, hypertensive maculopathy). Also, the issue of the use of cytostatics and immunodepressants for acute and chronic inflammatory eye diseases is discussed (for example, for uveitis, filamentary ke­ratitis, allergic blepharoconjunctivitis, allergic conjunctivitis and spring ophthalmia, adenoviral keratoconjunctivitis, rosacea keratitis, ocular pemphigoid, recurrent chalazion, scleritis, episcleritis, painful bullous keratopathy, state after keratoplasty and refractive surgery of ocular fibrous capsule). Special attention was paid to the eye neovascularization and common use of intravitreal injections of monoclonal antibodies (ranibizumab, aflibercept) for premature infants’ retinopathy, choroidal neovascularization of various origin (in trauma, myopia, histoplasmosis), neovascular form of age-related macular dystrophy, secondary neovascular glaucoma, proliferative diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema. Need for search of new more effective and safe medicines with antineoplastic and immunodepressive action is emphasized for ophthalmology, eye surgery and medicine in general.