EPIDEMIOLOGY AND ANTIFUNGAL SUSCEPTIBILITIES OF GHIPQRSTTUH STRAINS ISOLATED FROM PATIENTS WITH KERATOMYCOSIS IN SOUTH INDIA

摘要: VWXYab¡¡ c W strains isolated from keratomycosis patients in the Aravind Eye Hospital between August 2005 and February 2006 were involved in this study. The 26 patients included 17 males and 9 females. Rural, semiurban and urban populations were represented among the patients with 23%, 50% and 27%, respectively. The most frequent occupation of male patients was farmer with 53%, while that of female patients was housewives (78%). Corneal trauma has been reported as the potential predisposing condition of the infection for 57.7% of the patients, the traumatizing agents were dust or iron particles, insects or oil and mustard seeds. Regarding other ocular diseases, cataract has been diagnosed in the case of 6 patients (23.1%), while previous ocular surgery was performed in 4 cases (15.4%). Among the further possible predisposing conditions, systemic diseases like diabetes mellitus (26.9%) and hypertension (19.2%) proved to be frequent. The antifungal drugs applied for the therapy of patients included natamycin, itraconazole, ketoconazole, econazole, clotrimazole and amphotericin B. Therapeutic keratoplasty had to be performed in the case of 9 patients (34.6%). In India, the limited availability of antifungal drugs and the lack of response lead to blindness in a high number of patients. As the knowledge on antifungal susceptibilities is mainly based on the¢£# d $£¦ 8$¦¦ $£#© e¥¦¦ $£#"¥# $£# f 5 4 g 0 0 2