The eye can become involved in immune-mediated diseases that affect it
alone or as part of a multi-organ disease process. Much immunological
attention has been focused on other organs affected by these processes
and the subject of the immunology of eye diseases is a relatively new
one. Many of these diseases that involve the eye are not
life-threatening but can result in devastat- ing loss of sight that if
bilateral, will have major effects on the patient's life. Systemic
immunological investigations are generally unhelpful in these patients
and one of the major problems in this field has been the lack of
diseased tissue available for examination to determine the pathological
processes involved. Our poor understanding of basic mechanisms of
disease in the eye has meant that treatment of many of these conditions
is often inadequate. It has become possible to apply in the eye many
ofthe techniques used to investigate the role of the immune system in
other systems. Animal models of many of the disease processes have also
allowed dissection of the immune response both within and outside the
eye. It is my belief that a greater understanding of the mechanisms by
which the structures in the eye become damaged will allow more specific
and effective therapeutic strategies to be devised.