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ORPHA:70476

Vernal keratoconjunctivitis

high confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Spring catarrh

Publications

2,730

89.2th percentile

Trials

17

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

892

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

4/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare disorder of the anterior segment of the eye, characterized by a severe recurrent allergic reaction affecting the cornea and the conjunctiva. It presents with red eyes, ocular itching, photophobia, foreign body sensation, mucous discharge, blepharospasm, and blurring of vision. The symptoms are typically bilateral but may be asymmetric. Characteristic signs include conjunctival injection, giant papillae mostly on the upper tarsal conjunctiva (cobblestone appearance), limbal gelatinous infiltrates (Horner-Trantas dots), and variable corneal signs. The condition is more prevalent in hot climates and most commonly affects young boys.

How rare: >1 / 1000

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (1)

Vernal Keratonconjunctivitis

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

4/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    2,730 matched papers (1,412 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    23 HPO annotations (e.g. Epiphora; Corneal neovascularization; Punctate keratitis) Source

  4. Animal modelNot found

    No Alliance genotype “model of” associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  5. Orphan designationPresent

    3 FDA · 3 EMA designations (2 FDA orphan-indication approvals) — e.g. Tacrolimus Source

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    17 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (4 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

23

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0019085

  • Epiphora
  • Corneal neovascularization
  • Punctate keratitis
  • Blepharitis
  • Abnormal conjunctiva morphology

Showing 5 of 23 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

None returned for this Mondo ID. Empty here is not proof that no model organism work exists under another name or gene.

Monarch fetch 2026-07-29

Therapies

Designations, candidates, and chemicals

FDA OOPD and EMA orphan designations, Open Targets clinical candidates, and CTD chemical associations via MyDisease.info. These never change the interventional-trial headline.

Orphan designation (FDA · EMA)

6

Designations · 2 with FDA orphan-indication approval

  • FDA TacrolimusVernal keratoconjunctivitis · 2020-06-03 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication
  • FDA Cyclosporine AVernal keratoconjunctivitis · 2007-05-04 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication
  • EMA tacrolimus monohydrateTreatment of vernal keratoconjunctivitis · 25/03/2026 · PositiveEMA designation
  • EMA ciclosporin (Verkazia; Vekacia; Vekacia)Treatment of vernal keratoconjunctivitis · 06/04/2006 · PositiveEMA designation
  • FDA Lodoxamide tromethamine (Alomide Ophthalmic Solution)Vernal keratoconjunctivitis · 1991-10-16
  • EMA tacrolimus hydrateTreatment of vernal keratoconjunctivitis · 14/01/2004 · WithdrawnEMA designation

Sources: FDA OOPD · EMA orphan designations

Open Targets candidates

No drugs or clinical candidates returned for this Mondo ID on Open Targets.

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

No CTD chemical associations returned for this Mondo ID.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

2,730

2,730 papers have been published on this condition. That is a real research literature — still far smaller than common diseases (breast cancer: over 700,000 papers). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

2,730 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 59 (publications denominator n=3967).

1,412 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 89.2th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 2,730 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

892

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Leonardi A8 papers · 2026

    Department of Neuroscience, Ophthalmology Unit, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Agarwal S7 papers · 2025

    CJ Shah Cornea Services, Medical Research Foundation, Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Srinivasan B7 papers · 2026

    CJ Shah Cornea Services, Medical Research Foundation, Sankara Nethralaya, 18, College Road, Chennai, 600006, Tamil Nadu, India.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Basu S6 papers · 2026

    Shantilal Shanghvi Cornea Institute; Centre for Ocular Regeneration (CORE); and Brien Holden Eye Research Centre (BHERC); L V Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, Telangana, India.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Iyer G6 papers · 2025

    CJ Shah Cornea Services, Medical Research Foundation, Sankara Nethralaya, 18, College Road, Chennai, 600006, Tamil Nadu, India.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Kate A6 papers · 2026

    Shantilal Shanghvi Cornea Institute, L V Prasad Eye Institute, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Uchio E5 papers · 2025

    Department of Ophthalmology, Fukuoka University School of Medicine, Fukuoka, Japan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Ali A4 papers · 2026

    Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: asim.ali@sickkids.ca.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Esposito M4 papers · 2026

    Ophthalmology Unit, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, Rome, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Gurnani B4 papers · 2026

    Gomabai Netralaya and Research Centre

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

17

interventional trials for this specific condition

17 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 4 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 11 September 2026

17 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 94.4th percentile).

high confidence · 94.4th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

17 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Observational and natural-history studies

6 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Other registries (secondary)

Broader net from EU CTIS, ISRCTN, and ICTRP when available — deduped against ClinicalTrials.gov IDs already counted above. Dual-model LLM relevance gates what we keep. These rows are not added to the interventional headline.

raw 2 · after dedupe 2 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 2 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-30

Source notes: ictrp: Error: ICTRP public search unavailable (WHO portal is SPA-only; SOAP needs partnership). Tried: https://apps.who.int/tri

No secondary-registry studies passed dual-model relevance for this condition name (after dedupe).

Uncertain / not reviewed (2)

Where to find support

Condition-specific patient organisations, when Orphanet lists them, are on the disease’s Orphanet page. We also link umbrella groups that support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families.

Orphanet entry for Vernal keratoconjunctivitis — check Associations / patient organisations on that page.

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Vernal keratoconjunctivitis" OR "Spring catarrh" OR "Vernal Keratonconjunctivitis"

Run this search on Europe PMC

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Vernal keratoconjunctivitis" OR "Spring catarrh" OR "Vernal Keratonconjunctivitis"

Interventional trials matched via: phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 17 interventional · 6 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; with hits: phrase

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-27T01:31:12.219Z