The Cultured Organisms and In Vitro Antibiotic Sensitivity of Ocular Bacterial Infection

Kim, Hyun Tae; Lee, Ja Young; Chung, Sung Kun

Abstract

To study the frequency of the most common organisms according to culture sites, age, antibiotic sensitivity and resistance, we researched the medical records of the patients for the past 5 years who had ever been treated for infectious ocular disease. Total 19 strains and 226 bacterial organisms were cultured in 207 eyes. Most common organism was staphylococcus(37.6%). The overall percentage of gram-positive organisms showed 61.9% and that of gram-negative 38.1%. According to age, the most common organism was staphylococcus in neonatal period, streptococcus in the age from 1 to 10 and over 60, pseudomonas in the age from 21 to 30 and 41 to 50. The common organisms according to the culture site were staphylococcus in conjunctiva, staphylococcus and streptococcus in punctum, staphylococcus and pseudomonas in cornea, and staphylococcus in vitreous. The antibiotic sensitivity test of gram-positive organisms showed sensitivity more than 90% and rare resistance to ofloxacin and vancomycin. Gramneganisms showed sensitivity more than 80% to ofloxacin and resistance less than 30% to tobramycin. Ofloxacin showed high sensitivity and low resistance to all of the gram-positive and negative organisms. According to culture sites, it was vancomycin in conjunctiva and punctum, ofloxacin in cornea, and ciprofloxacin in vitreous that showed relatively high sensitivity and low resistance. Though it is necessary to culture and test antibiotic sensitivity in treating the ocular disease, it seemed effective as primary therapeutic agents to use appropriate antibiotics based on the clinical findings before the test results are reported. Periodic culturing of causative organisms and testing the antibiotic sensitivities would be helpful in selecting the effective antibiotics for treatment and reducing abuse of antibiotics.