IJSR International Journal of Scientific Research 2277 - 8179 Indian Society for Health and Advanced Research ijsr-9-3-24446 Original Research Paper Burden Of Ocular Manifestations In Patients Of Rheumatoid Arthritis In tertiary Care Centre Of Kumaon Region, Uttarakhand. Smriti Chikara Dr. Dr. Paramjeet Singh Dr. March 2020 9 3 01 02 ABSTRACT

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic systemic inflammatory disease marked by a symmetric, peripheral polyarthritis. It is associated with various extra–articular organ manifestations including subcutaneous nodules, pericarditis, major cutaneous vasculitis, ocular manifestations, hematological abnormalities etc. The well documented ocular manifestations of RA include kerato–conjunctivitis sicca , anterior uveitis, episcleritis, scleritis, scleromalacia perforans, peripheral ulcerative keratitis, corneal filamentary keratitis, retinal vasculitis. The Aim of our study was to identify the rheumatoid arthritis patients with ocular involvement presenting at tertiary care centre of Kumaon region of Uttarakhand. We examined 97 patients with diagnosis of RA. The ocular examintaion included; best corrected visual acuity, slit lamp examination, Schirmer’s test, tear break–up time,indirect ophthalmoscopy and fundus photography in patients with retinal involvement. In this study, the most common manifestation associated with RA was keratoconjunctivitis sicca followed by filamentary keratitis(7.86%) and uveitis (7.86%), scleritis (5%), episcleritis(3%). The least common was panophthalmitis (0.1%). Ocular manifestation among RA patients was found to be very common, i.e. 91.75% (89 cases, out which 62 were females)