Ocular leptospirosis: a review of current state of art of a neglected disease

Introduction: Leptospirosis is a neglected and re-emerging zoonotic disease that may cause ocular involvement, uveitis being the main complication of the systemic disease. Aim: The purpose of this review was to raise awareness and update on uveitis caused by leptospirosis, which is a challenging pathology because it can mimic other types of uveitis. Materials and methods: An article review, was conducted by searching PubMed (MEDLINE), Scielo, Cochrane Library databases using the following MeSH and DeCS terms: “leptospirosis”, “uveitis”, “ocular”, “eye” and “human”. The inclusion criteria were articles between 2000 and 2021 in English, Spanish, French or Portuguese. Results and Discussion: A total of 49 articles were obtained with the mentioned inclusion criteria, and additionally 5 articles before the year 2000, which were considered due to their relevance and scarcity of articles on the pathology. Afterwards, a description of the disease was made. Conclusion: This literature review was steered to raise awareness and to apprise physicians and ophthalmologists about a pathology that is becoming increasingly relevant, but underdiagnosed, even in developed countries. Abbreviations: REU = recurrent equine uveitis, MAT = microagglutination