Characterization of patients with severe corneal ulcer and therapeutic keratoplasty

Abstract

Introduction: keratoplasty has been the most used technique for the treatment of corneal alterations. Objective: to describe the clinical-epidemiological characteristics of therapeutic keratoplasty in patients with severe corneal ulcer. Method: a descriptive and cross-sectional observational study was carried out on 17 eyes of 16 patients operated on for therapeutic keratoplasty who presented severe corneal ulcer, admitted to the Ophthalmology service of the Hospital “Dr. Juan Bruno Zayas Alfonso” in Santiago de Cuba, in the period from January 2018 to December 2019. The variables studied were: age, gender, origin, occupation, predisposing factors, time of evolution prior to admission, previous topical treatment and causal germ. In the statistical analysis, the absolute frequency and the percentage were used for the qualitative variables, and for the quantitative ones, the mean and the standard deviation. Results: male patients predominated, retired with more than 60 years. Non-surgical ocular trauma prevailed as a predisposing factor. Prior to admission, antibiotic eye drops were applied more frequently, and the average evolution time was 12.2 days. The most preponderant group of germs was bacteria. Conclusions: the link between the causal germ and the application of previous topical medications in a prolonged manner favors the torpid evolution of the disease towards severe forms of corneal ulcer. This evolution offers a poor and prolonged response to conventional treatment schemes, which sometimes lead to a therapeutic-tectonic keratoplasty.

Keywords

• queratoplastia terapéutica/tectónica
• úlcera grave de la córnea
• trauma ocular