Catalogus

Materials and Methods: A 60 year old male patient with pseudophakic bullous keratopathy with rupture bullae and history of use of bandaged contact lens developed a corneal ulcer. Corneal scraping from the base and edge of the ulcer was obtained under slit lamp magnification and smear sent for various aerobic and anaerobic bacterial and fungal cultures such as Gram stain, Giemsa stain, KOH mount, Lacto-phenol Cotton-blue mount, culture on Brain-heart infusion based blood agar, chocolate agar and Sabouraud Dextrose Agar (SDA) to identify the type and time of growth to be able to diagnose the pathognomonic agent causing the keratitis.

Result: Positive smears and cultures from the corneal scrapings identified the causative agent as Myriodontium Keratinophilum. The clinical improvement was significant with meticulous use of hourly topical natamycin, and oral fluconazole twice a day. The corneal ulcer resolved with the formation of leucomatous corneal opacity. The patient was further registered for penentrating keratoplasty.

Conclusion: This case report lays emphasis on a thorough microbiological work up to provide insightful information thereby expanding our knowledge and spawning new research organisms which may not have been reported earlier. We hereby report a culture proven case of fungal keratitis due to a very rare species; Myriodontium keratinophilum.