ABSTRACT
The cardinal features of intraocular inflammation are cellular infiltrate and
breakdown of the blood ocular barrier, and are characterized clinically as vitritis,
retinal vasculitis, and chorioretinitis. Clinically, one issue that remains is to
define active versus inactive disease. While this can be extremely straightforward
for conditions such as panuveitis or intermediate uveitis (predominant vitritis), it
can be more difficult because of clinical subtleties for chorioretinitis and retinal
vasculitis. In this chapter, we will first describe the clinical features of active and
inactive posterior segment intraocular inflammation (PSII) before going on to
give overviews of signs that may lead us to describe infectious versus
noninfectious disease and determine sight-threatening disease. Such features
will be further emphasized in chapter 3, where we will hone down on describing
diagnosis and management of specific infectious and noninfectious PSII, and
how the clinical feature may assist in driving toward a specific diagnosis. To
this end, in this chapter we will describe the general systemic overview
examination of patients with uveitis, including supporting imaging and laboratory
investigations.
