Article Text

This article has a correction. Please see:

Download PDFPDF
Pythium insidiosumkeratitis confirmed by DNA sequence analysis
  1. PAUL R BADENOCH,
  2. DOUGLAS J COSTER
  1. Department of Ophthalmology, Flinders University of South Australia and Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park, South Australia
  2. Department of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park, South Australia
  3. Department of Anatomical Pathology, Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park
  4. South Australia
  5. CRC for Tropical Plant Pathology, University of Queensland, St. Lucia
  6. Queensland
  1. BRUCE L WETHERALL,
  2. HELEN T BRETTIG
  1. Department of Ophthalmology, Flinders University of South Australia and Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park, South Australia
  2. Department of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park, South Australia
  3. Department of Anatomical Pathology, Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park
  4. South Australia
  5. CRC for Tropical Plant Pathology, University of Queensland, St. Lucia
  6. Queensland
  1. MICHAEL A ROZENBILDS
  1. Department of Ophthalmology, Flinders University of South Australia and Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park, South Australia
  2. Department of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park, South Australia
  3. Department of Anatomical Pathology, Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park
  4. South Australia
  5. CRC for Tropical Plant Pathology, University of Queensland, St. Lucia
  6. Queensland
  1. ANDRÉ DRENTH,
  2. GABRIELE WAGELS
  1. Department of Ophthalmology, Flinders University of South Australia and Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park, South Australia
  2. Department of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park, South Australia
  3. Department of Anatomical Pathology, Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park
  4. South Australia
  5. CRC for Tropical Plant Pathology, University of Queensland, St. Lucia
  6. Queensland
  1. Dr Paul Badenoch, Department of Ophthalmology, Flinders Medical Centre, South Australia 5042, Australia

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Editor,—Pythium insidiosum is an unusual but serious ocular pathogen. Although the organism grows as a mycelium in tissue, it is not a member of the fungal kingdom and its identification can be a challenge for a routine laboratory. We report a case of Pythiumkeratitis in which the organism was confirmed by nucleic acid sequencing.

CASE REPORT

A 32 year old man was referred from Kuala Lumpur having suffered with intractable keratitis of the left eye for 4 weeks. He gave a history of diabetes, disposable contact lens wear, and swimming in the Kelang River. Routine microbiological investigations had been negative. At presentation to Flinders Medical Centre, he was on topical antibacterial, antifungal, and antiamoebic medication. He had a large epithelial defect, a deep stromal infiltrate approaching the limbus, and hypopyon (Fig 1, top). His visual acuity was hand movements and there was considerable pain. The drops were stopped and corneal scrapings were taken. Gram and Giemsa stains were negative. A biopsy was performed the following day and hyphae were observed in sections. A filamentous organism appeared in cultures of the original scrapings. There was no response to continued antifungal treatment and a penetrating graft was performed 4 days after the biopsy. Postoperatively, the patient received oral itraconazole and …

View Full Text

Linked Articles

  • Correction
    BMJ Publishing Group Ltd.BMA House, Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9JR