Abstract
Background/Objectives
As an essential development in the new century, surface ablation procedures have attracted increasing attention. There exists a concern regarding the risk of infectious keratitis. Hence, we aimed to investigate the rate and predisposing factors of infectious keratitis after photorefractive keratectomy (PRK).
Subjects/Methods
This retrospective study was designed in two phases. First, the rate of post-PRK keratitis of Farabi Eye Hospital was investigated. In other words, the targeted population was the patients who developed keratitis after performing procedure at Farabi Eye Hospital. In the second phase, all the patients with the diagnosis of post-PRK keratitis were studied regardless of the centre where surgery was performed. Patients with the diagnosis of infectious keratitis between 2014 and 2020 were enrolled and following information was analyzed: demographics, presentation time after surgery, perioperative medications, culture results, risk factors, medical treatment, complications, and final visual acuity.
Results
The total number of PRK procedures in our centre was 24,986 (13,253 patients), in which 6 eyes of 5 patients developed keratitis. Beside these 5 patients, 24 referred patients (24 eyes) from the other centres were enrolled. Finally, a total number of 29 patients (30 eyes) were included. Our analysis revealed that manipulation of contact lens, dry eye, and blepharitis were the essential predisposing factors for keratitis development.
Conclusion
The overall post-PRK keratitis occurrence rate of our study was 0.02%. Our observation highlighted the importance of preoperative examination and treatment of the lids and dry eye disease.
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Data availability
The data is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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MS1 and KC conceptualized the work. MK, MS1, and HF collected the data. MS1, SAT, MS2, and BR analyzed the data. MK and KC wrote the manuscript. MS2, HF, BR, and KC performed critical revision on the manuscript. All the authors read and approved the final version of manuscript.
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Soleimani, M., Keykhaei, M., Tabatabaei, S.A. et al. Post photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) infectious keratitis; six-year experience of a tertiary eye hospital. Eye 37, 631–637 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41433-022-02009-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41433-022-02009-2
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