Orthokeratology and contact lens

Roibeard O’hEineachain

Published: Monday, September 28, 2020

Varintorn Chuckpaiwong MD

Early clinical and microbiological diagnosis and intensive treatment can improve final visual outcomes in orthokeratology-associated infectious keratitis,said Vishal Jhanji MD, FRCS (Glasgow), FRCOphth, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, USA “As ophthalmologists we have to be more careful and on the lookout to see if orthokeratology lenses are going to increase the incidence of keratitis,” Dr Jhanji told the 2020 WSPOS Virtual Meeting. He noted that at in series of patients at tertiary care centre in Hong Kong, patients undergoing orthokeratology accounted for a round 25% of microbial keratitis cases and 33% of contact lens-related keratitis. Among the orthokeratology patients, the mean age, 15.0 years and the mean length of lens use was 2.8 years (range: 3 months to 10 years) and 52.17% had corneal perineuritis. In addition, 65.2% had a positive microbiological culture obtained from corneal scrapings. The most commonly isolated organism was Pseudomonas aeruginosa, followed by coagulase-negative Staphylococcus and Acanthamoeba (n = 3). An additional five cultures of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and five cultures of Acanthamoeba were obtained from contact lenses or contact lens solution. All patients responded to medical treatment, and the best-corrected visual acuity improved significantly from 20/83 to 20/28.