Accelerated vs. conventional collagen cross-linking for infectious keratitis.

Infectious keratitis represents a serious concern for ophthalmologists, with a progressively growing incidence in the last few years. In this prospective comparative study, we evaluated two groups of patients with infectious keratitis or corneal ulcer resistant to antimicrobial and antifungal therapy, treated respectively with conventional and accelerated photoactivated chromophore collagen cross-linking. Eight patients were assigned to each group and they were monitored for 12 months. We investigated the differences between groups, comparing on one side the mean of the quantitative variables using the t-test and on the other side the frequencies of qualitative variables using the Fisher exact test. The time to healing for the group treated with conventional cross-linking was 2 days longer than for the group undergoing accelerated cross-linking (34.9±11.4 vs. 32.9±9.4 days), a difference that did not reach statistical significance (P=0.708). We conclude that the accelerated protocol is as safe and efficient as the classic procedure. The accelerated protocol has an important advantage, both for the doctor and the patient, of being time sparing (the time for accelerated cross-linking is 3 times shorter than in the case of the conventional protocol).