Center for Ocular Inflammation

The Center for Ocular Inflammation is the first of its kind to offer integrative patient care, patient support, physician education, and research concerning to ocular inflammatory diseases such as uveitis, scleritis, and ocular cicatricial pemphigoid. The Center for Ocular Inflammation is an endowed program within the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Uveitis is a general term for a group of diseases involving infectious and non-infectious inflammation inside the eye. This group of diseases account for 10% of legal blindness in the United States and, unlike many age-related eye diseases, it affects younger, working-age individuals. Often, other organ systems are involved in the inflammatory process. When combined with other ocular inflammatory disorders such as scleritis and ocular pemphigoid, the scope and patient impact of ocular inflammation is even greater.  

Patients work with an ophthalmologist, a rheumatologist, and other medical specialists in a simultaneous, combined environment at the UCHealth Ocular Inflammation Multidisciplinary Clinic – Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center. Ocular inflammatory diseases can have significant long term visual consequences and we believe that this approach provides improved and more efficient patient care and physician coordination. 

In addition, the Center for Ocular Inflammation is involved in research to diagnose and define the role of the immune system in mediating visual loss through a variety of mechanisms. The faculty of the Center focus on both cellular and humoral immune processes in ocular inflammation. Our research is currently looking at genetic risk factors in uveitis and scleritis in general as well as focusing on mechanisms of inflammation in birdshot uveitis, retinal vasculitis, autoimmune retinopathy and infectious ocular diseases. We have established a biobank of over 1200 patients to facilitate research and the information generated from these samples can then be correlated with diagnostic imaging and therapeutic response. There has been a paucity of research directed at this class of diseases and the Center for Ocular Inflammation is one of the few endowed programs in the country devoted to improving the outcomes of patient with these problems.

Center for Ocular Inflammation Faculty

The Center has developed integrated clinics at the Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center, specializing in Uveitis and Rheumatology, Uveitis and Glaucoma, and Ocular Surface Inflammation. The UCHealth Ocular Inflammation Multidisciplinary Clinic – Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center team includes: