Purpose

We performed a 13-year nationwide population-based cohort study and investigated the association between a diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) and subsequent uveitis in Taiwan. To our knowledge, there have been no previously published studies describing the incidence of uveitis after TB.

Methods

Data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance system was retrieved and included patients newly diagnosed with TB between 2000 and 2012. The endpoint of interest was an occurrence of uveitis. Propensity score matching was used to create sets of participants in the TB and control groups. A matched set consists of at least one participant in the TB group and four in the control group with similar propensity scores.

Results

This nationwide population-based cohort study including 6,139 patients with TB, yielding 24,555 matched individuals, demonstrated that patients with TB had no significantly increased incidence of uveitis. After stratification by gender, and age, the relationship between TB and uveitis was still not significant.

Conclusions

This nationwide population-based cohort study from Taiwan showed that incidence of uveitis is not significantly higher in patients with TB. Further prospective multicenter collaborative studies to investigate the incidence of uveitis after systemic TB infection are warranted.