Muna Malik, Iffat Javed, Saeed Anwar, Sohaila Mushtaq, Fahd Kamal Akhtar.
Pattern of causative organisms in infective keratitis in a tertiary care hospital.
Pak J Pathol Jan ;29(1):12-6.

Background: According to worldwide survey for blindness and visual impairment, the blindness and visual impairment, which is caused by corneal, scaring, is the second most common reason after cataract and this is accountable for around 20-30% of all optical harm in developing countries. After improvement in medical field technology and antimicrobial therapy, the occurrence of infective keratitis has been condensed in advanced countries. However, due to absence of medical training and therapy, keratitis is the foremost cause of monocular morbidity in most undeveloped countries like Pakistan. Objective: To determine frequency and pattern of causative bacterial and fungal pathogens of infective keratitis in clinically diagnosed cases. Study design, Place and Duration of Study: This is a descriptive study carried out in Lahore General Hospital, Lahore from June, 2016 – June 2017. According to standard operating procedures, the samples of corneal scrapings were processed at Microbiology laboratory of department of Pathology PGMI, Lahore. Materials and Methods:The samples of corneal scrapings were collected from fifty patients of clinically identified cases of infectious keratitis by the ophthalmologists of Ophthalmology department of Lahore General Hospital, Lahore.  These corneal scrapings, which were taken by the ophthalmologist, were immediately inoculated on Blood agar, Chocolate agar, MacConkay agar and Sabouraud’s Dextrose agar, which had added antibiotics (chloramphenicol, gentamicin). The scrapes taken from cornea were immediately smeared on glass slides, they were air-dried and by heating method, they were fixed for Gram’s staining and Kinyoun method of staining and with alcohol fixation for Giemsa stain. Identification of bacterial and fungal pathogens was done by Microbiological standard operating procedures in Microbiology lab of PGMI, Lahore. Results:  Out of 50 cases, 21 (42 %) patients were diagnosed as having fungal keratitis while 12 (24 %) cases were diagnosed as bacterial keratitis and 3(6 %) were having bacterial or/ and fungal pathogen. The commonest isolated pathogen was Aspergillus spp. 7 cases, which is followed by five cases of Staphylococcus aureus in keratitis. Conclusion: The present study shows that the fungal keratitis is more common as compared to bacterial keratitis. Key words: Infective keratitis, Aspergillus spp.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com