Clinical features, antimicrobial susceptibilities, and treatment outcomes of patients with culture positive endophthalmitis after penetrating keratoplasty.

Purpose: To report the clinical features organisms and treatment outcomes in patients with endophthalmitis after penetrating keratoplasty (PK).

Methods: Retrospective noncomparative case series.

Results: Eleven eyes of 11 patients with culture positive endophthalmitis after PK were included. The time to diagnosis of endophthalmitis from last PK was less than 1 week in 3/11 (27%), between 1 and 4 weeks in 3/11 (27%), and greater than one month in 5/11 (46%) (range 2-924 days). The distribution of isolates included gram positive (GP) 9/11 (82%), gram negative (GN) 1/11 (9%), and fungal 1/11 (9%) species, respectively. Of GP bacteria tested, 9/9 (100%) were sensitive to Vancomycin. Of fungal isolates tested, none (0/1) were sensitive to Amphoteracin, Fluconazole, and/or Voriconazole. Among patients with rim culture data available, 1/7 (14%) donor rims were culture positive for and 6/7 (86%) were culture negative. Patients were treated with primary tap and inject in 10/11 (91%) and primary vitrectomy in 1/11 (9%). VA of ≥5/200 was present in 2/11 (18%) at time of endophthalmitis diagnosis, and was recorded in 6/11 (55%) at last follow-up.

Conclusions And Importance: Patients with endophthalmitis after PK presented at variable time points after surgery. Gram positive organisms were the most common isolate. VA outcomes after treatment were generally poor.