The MUST trial is a randomized controlled clinical trial comparing two treatments for patients with vision-threatening non-infectious intermediate uveitis, posterior uveitis, or panuveitis:

• local therapy with fluocinolone acetonide intraocular implant in affected eyes; versus
• standard therapy: systemic corticosteroid therapy supplemented, when indicated, by corticosteroid-sparing potent immuno-modulator therapy.

Study ophthalmologists, clinic coordinators, and patients will not be masked to treatment assignment. Masking will be applied to the determination of visual function at baseline, the six month visit, and thereafter . Patients will be followed until death, participant withdrawal, or a common study closeout. Patients will be seen at baseline, one month after randomization, three months after randomization, and every three months thereafter for data collection. Both ophthalmological and medical data will be collected to evaluate the outcomes of treatment of the uveitis, complications of the uveitis, and complications from therapy itself. Selected laboratory data related to the complications from systemic corticosteroid therapy will be collected.

The planned sample size of 250 patients, 125 per treatment group, is expected to give sufficient power to detect clinically important differences in visual acuity outcomes. Patients meeting the eligibility criteria detailed above will be enrolled at approximately 23 clinical centers in the United States, Australia and UK. Patients will be randomized on a 1:1 basis to one of the two treatment groups.