Pseudomonas Cepacia (PC) Contamination of a Cornea Conservated in Organ Culture

Background

In Switzerland three Eye Banks are operational for tissue banking. The Jules-Gonin Eye Hospital Eye Bank is one of the main of them and is able to provide each year about 120 corneal grafts for human therapy. The storage method used is organ culture at + 31 °C. In the medium, detection for bacterial contamination is available by change of color. The contamination rate of corneoscleral rims after penetrating keratoplasty is about 0.53 to 0.7 % [1] [4].

To our knowledge, this is the first description of a corneal button contaminated by Pseudomonas Cepacia and grafted on a recipient for human therapy. We describe the clinical features, the method used to identify the infection, the treatment and the procedure that was adapted to prevent a recurrence.

References

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