Clinical characteristics, predisposing factors, and management of moraxella keratitis in a tertiary eye hospital

The Moraxella species is a very uncommon pathogen that leads to microbial keratitis (MK). This study aimed to evaluate the clinical features, predisposing factors, and outcomes of Moraxella keratitis in patients of a tertiary eye hospital.

This retrospective study was conducted from 2015 to 2022, on patients who were admitted with the diagnosis of Moraxella keratitis confirmed by positive culture in a referral eye hospital. Demographics, predisposing factors, best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), and prognosis were assessed.

A total of 106 individuals diagnosed with Moraxella keratitis, were analyzed. The mean age was 54.42 ± 19.43 years. The mean baseline BCVA of the patients was 2.28 ± 0.6 LogMAR, while this amount reached 1.49 ± 0.81 in the 6-month follow-up (P-value = 0.02). The mean BCVA in the six-month follow-up of the patients who needed surgical interventions was significantly lower than the patients who received only medical treatment (2.15 ± 0.65 vs. 1.29 ± 0.75 LogMAR, P-value = 0.02). Patients with diabetes and those without diabetes did not substantially vary in the prevalence of corneal perforation (P-value = 0.515). Three predisposing factors including corneal perforation (odds ratio = 19.27, P-value = 0.001), hypertension (HTN) (odds ratio = 3.62, P-value = 0.03), and older age (odds ratio = 1.03, P-value = 0.008) were significantly associated with more need for surgical interventions.

In this cohort, poor prognosis necessitating surgical interventions in Moraxella keratitis was found to be associated with corneal perforation, HTN, and older age.