Pseudomonas aeruginosa keratitis misdiagnosed as fungal keratitis by in vivo confocal microscopy: a case report

BMC Research Notes

Jianjiang Xu²  Wenjun Cao²  Sophie X Deng¹  Qihua Le²  Jiaxu Hong³ 

[1] Cornea Division, Jules Stein Eye Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA;Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat Hospital, School of Shanghai Medicine, Fudan University, 83 Fenyang Road, Shanghai 200031, China;Schepens Eye Research Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA

关键词: In vivo confocal microscopy;    Fungal keratitis;    Pseudomonas aeruginosa keratitis;   

Others  :  1232483
DOI  :  10.1186/1756-0500-7-907

 received in 2014-04-29, accepted in 2014-12-11,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

To report a case of non-typical Pseudomonas aeruginosa keratitis that was misdiagnosed as fungal keratitis by in vivo confocal microscopy.

Case presentation

A 37-year-old Chinese woman presented with a 2-week history of increasing pain and redness of the right eye. She was started on hourly topical fortified tobramycin and levofloxacin by the referring doctor without improvement. She denied any improvement of her symptoms and signs. On examination, she had a large central corneal ulcer extending to the peripheral cornea. Further symptoms included a satellite lesion, intense conjunctival injection and marked corneal oedema. The corneal scrape was not performed initially because of the deep infiltrate in the stroma. The patient was examined by in vivo confocal microscopy. Confocal microscopy images showed hyper-reflective, thin, and branching interlocking linear structures in the stroma that were 5–8 μm in width and 200–400 μm in length. The morphology was consistent with that of fungus. However, the histopathological examination, Gram stain, and culture of the cornea only confirmed the presence of a Pseudomonas species within the deep strom. No fungal element was found. The pathogen was sensitive to ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, levofloxacin, tobramycin and amikacin.

Conclusion

This case reports the potential for a false positive finding of fungus in Pseudomonas aeruginosa keratitis and emphasizes the importance of bacterial culture and antibiotic susceptibility testing in the management of microbial keratitis.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Hong et al.; licensee BioMed Central.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

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