Grading of pars planitis by ultrasound biomicroscopy--echographic and clinical study.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the value of high frequency ultrasound biomicroscopy (UBM) in the assessment of pars planitis, and in particular to correlate UBM findings and ophthalmoscopy findings. METHODS: All patients with pars planitis were identified from the uveitis database of the Department of Ophthalmology, University of Aberdeen. Fifteen consecutive patients (age 14-52 years) underwent complete ophthalmological examination. UBM was performed at a sound frequency of 50 MHz on 17 eyes of 10 patients to determine the extent of disease. UBM findings were evaluated by two investigators in a blinded fashion and graded from 0 to 3 according to the following grading criteria: 0=no cells, 1=mild cells, 2=marked cells, 3=organization of cells. Opthalmoscopy findings were also graded using the same criteria. UBM and ophthalmoscopy findings were independently graded and compared. RESULTS: We found a good inter-observer correlation for the UBM grading of pars planitis (rho=0.86). There was no significant difference in the grading of pars planitis by indirect ophthalmoscopy as compared to grading by UBM (P>0.05). CONCLUSION: UBM appears to be a valuable and reliable diagnostic technique for the evaluation of patients with pars planitis and may be useful especially in patients with media opacities to diagnose and/or monitor efficacy of treatment.