Clinical Utility of CRISPR-Based RID-MyC Assay in Smear and Culture-Negative Fungal Keratitis: A Case Series.

Purpose: To assess the clinical utility of the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/Cas12a-based RID-MyC assay in diagnosing Fungal Keratitis (FK) in cases where conventional smear and culture methods fail to identify the causative pathogen.

Methods: This retrospective case series included 5 patients with clinically suspected FK and negative smear and culture results who were evaluated in the Cornea Department at Aravind Eye Hospital, Coimbatore, India, between January 1, 2024, and March 31, 2024. The primary outcome was the diagnostic performance of the RID-MyC assay in detecting fungal nucleic acids in cases of suspected FK with negative smear and culture results.