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. 2015 Feb;99(2):192-4.
doi: 10.1136/bjophthalmol-2014-305000. Epub 2014 Aug 20.

Trends in bacterial and fungal keratitis in South India, 2002-2012

Prajna Lalitha  1 , Namperumalsamy V Prajna  2 , Geetha Manoharan  1 , Muthiah Srinivasan  2 , Jeena Mascarenhas  2 , Manoranjan Das  2 , Sean S D'Silva  2 , Travis C Porco  3 , Jeremy D Keenan  4
Affiliations

Trends in bacterial and fungal keratitis in South India, 2002-2012

Prajna Lalitha et al. Br J Ophthalmol. 2015 Feb.

Abstract

Objective: To assess the trends in microbiological organisms identified from corneal scrapings from patients with infectious keratitis at a tertiary care medical centre in South India.

Methods: We reviewed the records of the microbiology laboratory at Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, India, from 2002 until 2012. We identified the microbiological causes of all corneal ulcers from the culture and smear results, and assessed for trends in bacterial and fungal keratitis over time.

Results: Of 23 897 corneal patients with ulcer with a corneal smear from 2002 to 2012 a fungal organism was identified in 34.3%, a bacterial organism in 24.7% and no organism in 38.3%. During this period, the annual number of keratitis cases due to bacteria decreased from 677 to 412, and the annual number due to fungus increased from 609 to 863. In analyses accounting for the total number of outpatients seen each year, the decline in number of smears positive for bacteria was statistically significant (p<0.001) but the increase in the number positive for fungus was not (p=0.73). The relative frequency of individual bacterial or fungal organisms remained relatively stable over this time.

Conclusions: At a tertiary eye care centre in South India, there has been a reduction in the numbers of smear-positive bacterial keratitis over the past 11 years. This decline likely reflects economic development in India and increased access to antibiotics.

Keywords: Cornea; Microbiology.

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Conflict of interest statement

Acknowledgements

None of the authors reports a conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Trends in bacterial and fungal corneal ulcers from 2002 to 2012 at Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai, India.
Points represent the annual number of smears that were positive for bacteria, fungi, mixed bacterial and fungal organisms, or did not show an organism (left y-axis). The grey bars depict the number of annual outpatient visits at Aravind Eye Hospital (right y-axis).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Trends in the major bacterial and fungal organisms isolated from corneal cultures from 2002 to 2012 at Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai.
Points represent the annual number of cultures positive for each organism (left y-axis). Stacked bars depict the fraction of corneal ulcer patients who were cultured, with the grey portion representing the number who received a culture and the white portion representing the number who did not (right y-axis).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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