Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada Disease and Sympathetic Ophthalmia: Is there an Immune Mediated Etiopathologic Relationship with Neural Crest Cell Derivatives and Ciliary Body Stem Cells?

Pradeep Venkatesh

Abstract

Vogt Koyanagi Harada disease (VKH) is a multisystem disorder of an unknown, possibly immune etiology. Sympathetic ophthalmia is also a bilateral panuveitis of presumed immune origin where the inciting stimulus is an injury to the eyeball. The etiopathogenesis of these two diseases which manifest as panuveitis remains poorly understood. In this review, an effort is made to draw a possible etiological association between ciliary body stem/ progenitor cells and sympathetic ophthalmia and one between Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease and neural derived crest cells.

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