Study of incidence of endophthalmitis in posttherapeutic keratoplasty patients at a secondary care hospital in Saurashtra Region, India

Background: Endophthalmitis is an infrequent but devastating intraocular infection. The objective of the present study was to detect the incidence of endophthalmitis in posttherapeutic keratoplasty patients. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted at a secondary-level government eye care center at Rajkot, Gujarat. The study included 71 eyes of 71 patients prospectively from January 2013 to December 2014. All the patients who underwent therapeutic keratoplasty for suppurative keratitis and descemetocele were included in this study. The study excluded all the patients who underwent optical penetrating keratoplasty and posttraumatic keratoplasty. The patients were followed up on the 1st, 7th, 15th, and 45th postoperative days for signs and symptoms of endophthalmitis. Results: There were 71 eyes of 71 patients including 44 (62.0%) males and 27 (38.0%) females. The mean age of the patients was 53.4 ± 18.9 years (range: 8–98 years). Out of the 71 eyes, 51 had preoperative ocular history including foreign body fall (15 [21.1%]), vegetative material trauma (20 [28.2%]), nonvegetative material trauma (11 [15.5%]), and previous keratoplasty (5 [7.0%]). Predominantly, bacterial infection was reported in 28 (39.4%) patients. Iritis was reported in all patients after keratoplasty followed by conjunctivitis (9.9%) and vitritis (7.0%). During follow-up examination on the 1st, 7th, 15th, and 45th postoperative days, zero incidence of endophthalmitis was reported. Conclusion: The present study reported zero incidence of endophthalmitis in therapeutic penetrating keratoplasty patients. Therapeutic penetrating keratoplasty is effective in the management of eye with suppurative keratitis and descematocoele.