The Facts on Ocular Rosacea

Ocular rosacea is a term used to describe the spectrum of eye findings associated with the skin involvement. Ocular involvement may include meibomian gland dysfunction and/or chronic staphylococcal lid disease, recurrent chalazia, chronic conjunctivitis, peripheral corneal neovascularization, marginal corneal infiltrates with or without ulceration, episcleritis and iritis. Occasionally, the ocular manifestations may precede skin involvement, delaying the diagnosis.

Rosacea occurs most commonly in adult life, between the ages of 30 and 60 years. It may also be found in children, although rarely. In a series of 47 patients with ocular rosacea, the decade of prevalence was 51-60 years. Ocular involvement occurs in more than 50% of patients. Women have been traditionally considered to be affected with twice the frequency of men, although some data suggests that the distribution between men and women is equal. Cases with ocular manifestations are about evenly divided between the sexes or show only a small female preponderance. The distribution of cases by age in the two sexes is similar. Both acne rosacea and ocular rosacea have been documented in blacks. Increased pigmentation in the black population may mask the early lesions of rosacea, accounting for previous failure to recognize the disease in the black population. There is a wide-spread clinical impression that rosacea mainly affects fair-skinned people of northern European descent or Celtic origin. However, studies have not substantiated this assumption.