Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Oct;68(10):2199-2201.
doi: 10.4103/ijo.IJO_1560_20.

Use of 'U-shaped tool for follow up of corneal ulcer cases in the COVID-19 pandemic

Rahul K Bafna  1 , Abhijeet Beniwal  1 , Nidhi Kalra  1 , Suman Lata  1 , Mohamed Ibrahime Asif  1 , Namrata Sharma  1
Affiliations

Use of 'U-shaped tool for follow up of corneal ulcer cases in the COVID-19 pandemic

Rahul K Bafna et al. Indian J Ophthalmol. 2020 Oct.

Abstract

To describe a smartphone-based telemedicine tool for monitoring of corneal ulcer size during the corona pandemic, a simple "U"-shaped tool was constructed using three Schirmer's strips that were provided to the patients with small to medium-sized corneal ulcers. The patient and the attendant were trained to use this simple U-shaped tool at home and send digital images to the treating ophthalmologist, to monitor the course of the ulcer. The tool was used in five eyes of five patients with active microbial keratitis. Patients were followed up regularly with the use of telemedicine facility every 48 h for an average duration of 7.6 days (range 6-9 days). In all the five eyes, assessment of the serial images with U-shaped tool showed decrease in size of corneal ulcer, which corroborated with subjective improvement in symptoms. Hence, the novel "'U'-shaped tool" may provide an effective measure in following-up of corneal ulcer patients in times of the COVID-19 pandemic, obviating frequent hospital visits and risk of contracting COVID.

Keywords: Bacterial keratitis; COVID-19; corneal ulcer; follow-up; pandemic.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

None

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(a) Three Schirmer's strips, (b) the “U”-shaped tool, (c) digital image of an ulcer with fluorescein staining, and (d) rectangle tool on (c) showing epithelial defect: 4 × 4 mm approx
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a) Digital image of ulcer in a child, (b) rectangle drawn on (a) showing infiltrate: 2 × 2 mm, (c) the same eye after 48 h, (d) rectangle drawn on (c) infiltrate: 1.5 × 1 mm
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Kim RY, Cooper KL, Kelly LD. Predictive factors for response to medical therapy in bacterial ulcerative keratitis. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 1996;234:731–8. - PubMed
    1. Toutain-Kidd CM, Porco TC, Kidd EM, Srinivasan M, Prajna NV, Acharya N, et al. Evaluation of fungal keratitis using a newly developed computer program, Optscore, for grading digital corneal photographs. Ophthalmic Epidemiol. 2014;21:24–32. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mukerji N, Vajpayee RB, Sharma N. Technique of area measurement of epithelial defects. Cornea. 2003;22:549–51. - PubMed
    1. Patel TP, Prajna NV, Farsiu S, Valikodath NG, Niziol LM, Dudeja L, et al. Novel image-based analysis for reduction of clinician-dependent variability in measurement of the corneal ulcer size. Cornea. 2018;37:331–9. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mazumder H, Hossain MM, Das A. Geriatric care during public health emergencies: Lessons learned from novel corona virus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. J Gerontol Soc Work. 2020;63:257–8. - PubMed

MeSH terms