J Korean Ophthalmol Soc.  2001 Apr;42(4):600-606.

Polymerase Chain Reaction in the Diagnosis of Infectious Endophthalmitis

• Lee SJ
• Choi YJ
• You YS
• Koh HJ
• Lee JH
• Lee SC
• Park JH
• Kwon OW

Abstract

PURPOSE: We evaluated the efficacy of the PCR which is known as more sensitive method than culture in the diagnosis of causal microorganisms of the infective endophthalmitis.
METHODS
We used 0.3 ml of aqueous humor and 0.5 ml of vitreous sample in 3 cases of postoperative and 1 case of endogenous endophthalmitis for detecting causal microorganisms. To detect the bacteria we used universal, Gram positive and negative primers, and to detect the fungus we used fungal primer.
RESULTS
Three cases of endophthalmitis, there was no bacteria in the bacterial culture for 10 days but PCR results identified causal microorganisms in all cases.
CONCLUSIONS
PCR is effective in the fast and accurate diagnosis of infective endophthalmitis and especially in the culture-negative endophthalmitis.

Keyword

Culture; Diagnosis; Endophthalmitis; PCR(polymerase chain reaction)

MeSH Terms

Aqueous Humor
Bacteria
Diagnosis*
Endophthalmitis*
Fungi
Polymerase Chain Reaction*