ABSTRACT
The list of different systemic and local conditions associated with inflammatory eye disease is legion. If an ophthalmologist thinks about the entire list every time they approach a patient then they are likely to get lost very early on and order a battery of tests, which are then likely to cause further diagnostic confusion. The false-positive rates with blood tests done for uveitic purposes are such that if many are ordered then the chance of a distracting, clinically unhelpful result goes from a distinct possibility to a near certainty. A chest x-ray is mandatory if doing blood tests for lung-based conditions, specifically sarcoidosis and tuberculosis (TB), as it can make the clinical importance of the blood test result more or less powerful. The only skin test ophthalmologists are ever likely to come across is the Mantoux test for TB and this is best done via the respiratory physicians.
