Exogenous, ocular, and systemic factors associated with keratitic ulceration.

Information on type and frequency of empirically observed exogenous, ocular, and systemic predisposing factors for keratitic ulceration is important for clinical identification of groups at risk and may form a basis for planning experimental studies on the pathogenesis of ulceration. Therefore a retrospective study comprising 104 patients with 25 herpetic and 79 non-herpetic corneal ulcerations was performed. Patients with herpetic ulcerations were mainly males and were younger than patients with non-herpetic corneal ulceration. Keratoplasty and steroid treatment was found as frequent co-existing predisposing factors in the herpetic group. In the non-herpetic group an exogenous factor was found in 56%, an ocular factor in 56%, and a systemic predisposing factor in 46% of the patients. In only 2.5% of these patients was there found no predisposing factor. Pathogenetic mechanisms of predisposing factors for non-herpetic corneal ulceration is discussed.