If statistics are correct you as an ophthalmologist will have a 40% chance to take care of at least one case of sympathetic ophthalmia in your lifetime. A frantic search of the recent literature to find out how best to treat this disease will leave you disappointed. As yet, no standard therapy has been outlined. Sympathetic ophthalmia is not common, but it is devastating and feared by us all. Textbooks usually state that 1%-2% of penetrating injuries of the globe result in sympathetic uveitis. This seems high.1 An inquiry was sent to 1,200 ophthalmologists to determine the magnitude of the problem in recent years, 540 physicians representing 11,031 years of practice answered. Of this number 221 had had 461 cases of sympathetic ophthalmia. In 1935 Joy found that of 212 doctors answering his inquiry, 82 saw 158 cases of sympathetic ophthalmia.2 Certainly the disease although rare is not