Annabelle A Okada

　　Department of Ophthalmology Kyorin University School of Medicine Tokyo Japan 100044

　　Treatment of the uveitis associated with Behcet’s disease has been transformed over the past decade by 2 biologic agents.The first is recombinant interferon-alpha，which has found great success in the treatment of many Behcet’s disease patients for both their ocular and extraocular manifestations.The second is infliximab，a monoclonal antibody against tumor necrosis factor-alpha.Officially approved in January 2007 for the specific indication of uveitis associated with Behcet’s disease，infliximab has been administered to over 500 patients to date in Japan.Although long-term evaluation is still limited for interferon-alpha and infliximab，the use of both of these drugs has lead to the cessation of inflammatory attacks in numerous patients，and consequently a rethinking of what is possible in the treatment of this disease。

　　This talk will introduce recent data on these two biologic therapies，and discuss the limitations and possible side effects of each.