• Users Online: 18
  • Print this page
  • Email this page
REVIEW ARTICLE
Year : 2022  |  Volume : 2  |  Issue : 1  |  Page : 11-17

A review of the management of pythium keratitis


Department of Cornea and Anterior Segment, Visakha Eye Hospital, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India

Correspondence Address:
Dr. Ramya Seetam Raju
Visakha Eye Hospital, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh
India
Login to access the Email id

Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None


DOI: 10.4103/jocr.jocr_4_22

Rights and Permissions

Pythium keratitis is one of the chief etiologies of atypical microbial keratitis. It has an extremely grave prognosis. A low index of suspicion, its resemblance to fungal keratitis, and inappropriate diagnosis and management all contribute to the poor outcomes. The absence of adequate literature recommending a standard regimen further worsens the picture. Although Pythium resembles a fungus, it lacks ergosterol. Hence, antifungals are ineffective. While its successful management using antibiotics has been described, some conclude that surgery is the mainstay and recommend techniques to minimize recurrences. This review article aims to bring together the various modalities of diagnosis and therapy of Pythium keratitis. It focuses on the clues to clinical suspicion which would facilitate a prompt diagnosis. It also highlights the importance of high index of suspicion in presumed fungal keratitis with a poor response to antifungals. A search was carried out using PubMed and Google Scholar for articles in English language using the keywords: Pythium insidiosum, Pythium keratitis, management of Pythium keratitis, investigations in Pythium keratitis, Polymerase Chain Reaction in Pythium keratitis, diagnosis of Pythium keratitis, and treatment of Pythium keratitis. Articles were included if they were of high significance for this article. Case reports also were taken into consideration if they conveyed data of importance.


[FULL TEXT] [PDF]*
Print this article     Email this article
 Next article
 Previous article
 Table of Contents

 Similar in PUBMED
   Search Pubmed for
   Search in Google Scholar for
 Related articles
 Citation Manager
 Access Statistics
 Reader Comments
 Email Alert *
 Add to My List *
 * Requires registration (Free)
 

 Article Access Statistics
    Viewed3540    
    Printed546    
    Emailed0    
    PDF Downloaded243    
    Comments [Add]    

Recommend this journal