Objective: Aim of the study was to examine extent, natural history, and clinical features associated with visual impairment (VI) in patients diagnosed with ocular tuberculosis (OTB) by the Collaborative Ocular Tuberculosis Study (COTS)-1.Methods: Multi-center retrospective cohort study. Main outcomes were VI.Results: A total of 302 patients were included in the study, including 175 patients whose data related to BCVA were available throughout the 2 years of follow up. Mean BCVA grossly improved at 12, 18, and 24 months of follow-up (p < .001). Mean BCVA was worse at 12-18th month follow-up for patients treated with ATT versus patients who were not treated with ATT, but patients treated with ATT had a statistically significant improvement in BCVA at the 24-month endpoint.Conclusions: OTB is associated with significant visual morbidity, future well-designed prospective studies are warranted to establish the causal association between OTB and visual loss.
Keywords: Tuberculosis; blindness; uveitis; visual impairment; visual morbidity.