Ulcerative keratitis associated with contact lens wear

• Main Authors: Bharathi M, Ramakrishnan R, Meenakshi R, Kumar C, Padmavathy S, Mittal S
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications 2007-01-01
• Series: Indian Journal of Ophthalmology
• Subjects: Contact lens-associated keratitis; incidence; microbial etiology; microbial contamination of contact lens-care system; <i> P. aeruginosa</i> .
• Online Access: http://www.ijo.in/article.asp?issn=0301-4738;year=2007;volume=55;issue=1;spage=64;epage=67;aulast=Bharathi
• ISSN: 0301-4738

To review the microbiological profile of ulcerative keratitis associated with contact lens (CL)-wear, 35 patients with culture-proven CL-associated microbial keratitis were studied between September 1999 and September 2002. Corneal scrapes and CL-care products were collected and were subjected to microbiological evaluation. Gram-negative bacilli alone were recovered from the corneal scrapes of all 35 (100&#x0025;) patients, all 70 (100&#x0025;) CL storage case wells and also from CL-care solution of six (17.14&#x0025;) of the 35 patients. There was a significantly higher number of <i> Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i> (71.43&#x0025;) isolated from eyes with CL-related keratitis than other bacterial isolates (28.57&#x0025;) (<i> P</i> &#60; 0.001). Microbial contamination of CL storage cases was a great risk for gram-negative bacterial infection among soft CL-wearers.