Researchers evaluated the usefulness of sulfasalazine (Azulfidine) in the prevention of recurrent flares of acute anterior uveitis. Approximately one-third of people with spondylitis have had or will develop the potentially serious inflammation of the eye called uveitis or iritis, which can cause blindness or other complications if not treated immediately. The medication sulphasalazine is known to effectively control not only pain and joint swelling from arthritis of the small joints, but also the intestinal lesions in inflammatory bowel disease. Given this information, the study is of particular importance to people with spondylitis, even though the researchers did not specify whether or not the study participants had spondylitis.

Study Criteria
Santiago Munoz-Fernandez and colleagues from the Rheumatology and Ophthalmology Units in the Hospital Universitario La Paz, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, included patients seen from June 1997 to October 2000 who fulfilled the following criteria:

1. More than three flares of acute anterior uveitis in the previous year
2. More than two recurrences of uveitis within three months before starting the trial

They excluded uveitis of infectious or malignant origin and patients with contraindications to the drug. A total of three hundred ninety-four patients with uveitis were evaluated during the period of the study, and only 10 patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria.

Results
In these 10 patients, the average number of flares in the pre-sulfasalazine year was 3.4, which was significantly reduced to 0.9 flares in the year of treatment with the medication.

The researchers conclude that sulfasalazine treatment seems to reduce the number of flares over a one-year period in patients with recurrent acute anterior uveitis.

Results of this study were published in a recent issue of The Journal of Rheumatology.