PT Health Life

Fungal corneal ulcers can cause blindness

0 12,477

PT Health Life – Fungal keratitis is a condition of corneal disorganization due to necrosis, caused by an inflammatory process on the cornea caused by fungi. If not treated promptly, the patient is at risk of vision loss and even blindness.

1. Fungal species cause inflammation

There are two main types of fungi that cause disease: yeast and filamentous fungi. Among them, yeast is single-celled, round, ovoid with or without buds. Multicellular filamentous fungi, tubular, branched with or without septa.

Fungi that commonly cause corneal ulcers are filamentous fungi, commonly Fusarium, Aspergillus. Filamentous fungi are often more difficult to diagnose and treat than yeast.

2. The cause of corneal ulcers is fungal

Fungal keratitis is a corneal infection that is difficult to treat.

Fungal corneal ulcers are common in hot and humid climates and developing countries, and are related to corneal injuries caused by soil, dust, twigs, and leaves. There are also some other risk factors such as using contact lenses, after eye surgery, and patients with immunodeficiency syndrome.

Fungal keratitis is a corneal infection that is difficult to treat. The rate of fungal corneal ulcers is increasing and difficult to treat due to poor environmental hygiene, poor labor protection and the overuse of corticosteroid eye medications.

The prognosis of fungal corneal ulcers is often worse than that of bacterial corneal infections in general, because fungal corneal infections are difficult to diagnose (only based on clinical conditions without the ability to diagnose by paraclinical testing). There are few antifungal drugs, high prices, and the habit of using corticosteroids and antibiotics indiscriminately.

3. Symptoms of fungal corneal ulcers

Fungal corneal ulcers often appear after a micro-injury to the eye (dust, twigs, or rice leaves poking the eye), starting quietly, silently, progressing slowly, causing little irritation and lasting a long time.

Fungal corneal ulcers flare up violently when patients use corticosteroids. Patients experience eye pain, redness, glare, fear of light, tearing, and blurred vision.

The typical image is a round/oval ulcer with clear boundaries. The bottom of the ulcer is often covered with a thick, dry, scaly layer of necrosis on the surface of the cornea. Around the ulcer there is a cotton-like infiltrate in the parenchyma.

Examination will reveal pus in the anterior chamber that increases and decreases erratically. There are currently many paraclinical diagnostic methods to identify fungal corneal ulcers. In which, fresh examination, direct examination, identification culture, ELISA technique, PCR technique can be used…

4. How to treat fungal corneal ulcers?

Fungal ulcers are difficult to treat. Diagnosis is often delayed and drugs available for ocular treatment are limited by their inability to penetrate deeply into the cornea. Treatment of fungal corneal ulcers often requires very aggressive and persistent treatment.

All cases of fungal corneal infections should be monitored daily until there is marked improvement. The treatment time for fungus is often long. Complete healing of corneal damage can take weeks and even months.

When a foreign object gets into your eye, you should immediately go to an eye specialist facility for examination and treatment.

Treatment of fungal corneal ulcers should be strictly prescribed by an ophthalmologist. Surgical intervention may be required such as: corneal peeling or even corneal transplant depending on the condition and severity of the disease.

To prevent fungal corneal ulcers, people need to be careful in daily life and work to avoid eye injuries.

You should wear eye protection when working and on the road. If you accidentally get dust, grit, rice grains, etc. splashed in your eyes, absolutely do not rub or scratch the cornea.

The correct way to behave is if in a controllable situation (like just dust particles flying into your eyes), you should wash your eyes with clean water to let the dust go away on its own.

If it doesn’t help, or a larger foreign object gets into your eye, you should immediately go to an eye specialist facility for examination and treatment. People who use contact lenses need to strictly follow hygiene. When you have symptoms of general eye diseases such as itching, scratches, etc., you should not arbitrarily buy eye drops to apply, and avoid arbitrarily using eye drops containing corticosteroid ingredients.

Examination and prescription of treatment should be carried out at specialized eye medical facilities to avoid harmful consequences leading to blindness.

Đánh giá bài viết
Leave A Reply

Your email address will not be published.