What is Fusarium Keratitis?

Fusarium Keratitis is a fungal eye infection of the cornea where a fungus, which typically grows on plants, invades the cornea. When this happens, the Fusarium Keratitis starts to replace normal tissue. The fusarium organism then puts out enzymes that eat and scar corneal tissue. The scarring of the cornea can become so bad that with severe penetration of the cornea surgery is required.

Fungal Keratitis is difficult to diagnose and is often misdiagnosed. Keratitis is mostly associated with some trauma to the cornea, like when a branch scrapes your cornea during mountainbiking. Fungal Keratitis is a slow smoldering infection that is hard to control. It ultimately causes a thinning of the cornea which can result in irregular astigmatism, which cannot be corrected by glasses or soft lenses. You also may lose the ability to have your vision permanently corrected by Lasik because of the irregular shape of the cornea.

For diagnosis purposes, keratitis does not look like conjunctivitis. Usually, the physician will see an infiltrate of white blood cells which are trying to fight the infection. These are emanating from the limbus which is the edge of the clear part of the cornea where it meets the white part of the eye. Normally there are no blood vessels in the cornea and it gets its oxygen from tears. When making a diadnosis of bacterial infection versus fungal infection there can be difference in appearance that the opthamologist can see with a slit lamp and magnification.

Fungal infections have fluffy infiltrates, like feathers. The only way to get a definitive diagnosis of Fusarium Keratitis is to do a corneal scraping, smear it on a slide and look in a microscope. Typically a doctor won't do that before treatment. One major reason is that patients usually first see an Emergency Room doctor or primary care doctor, rather than their opthamologist.

Usualy the PCP or ER give the patient a broad spectrum antibiotic drop which may or may not have an anti-fungal effect. Thus, by the time the typical fungal eye infected patient makes their way to get to the opthamologist, they need to be taken off the antibiotic for a couple of days before taking the smear. Instead of doing that, the opthamologist simply adds the anti-fungal to the treatment plan. Typically the doctor will prescribe fortified anti-biotic drops or even quinalone amtibiotics. These drops have to be put in every 5 mnutes for an hour and then once an hour, 24 hours a day for 1 to 2 days. Fungal infections tend to take longer to heal. Up to 6 weeks.

If you have a Fusarium Keratitis infection from Bausch & Lomb ReNu with MoistureLoc, please contact us to set up a free consultation. Click here to contact us for a free Keratitis case evaluation.