A case of Corynebacterium propinquum microbial keratitis after amniotic membrane transplantation.

BACKGROUND

Amniotic membrane transplantation (AMT) is a relatively safe procedure with few complications. Postoperatively, patients are treated with topical antibacterial eye drops. However, even antibacterial drug administration cannot completely prevent antimicrobial-resistant keratitis. This paper presents a case of Corynebacterium propinquum keratitis associated with AMT.

CASE PRESENTATION: An 84-year-old female patient who underwent AMT for bullous keratopathy developed keratitis with colony formation on the transplanted amniotic membrane graft 45 days postoperatively. The colony was scraped, cultured, and identified as C. propinquum using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). Subsequently, topical treatment improved the infection while relieving the pain.

CONCLUSION

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported case of C. propinquum keratitis associated with amniotic membrane grafts. Although AMT is a relatively safe procedure with few complications, careful observation is required to diagnose and treat possible postoperative infection. Immunosuppressed patients, including those post-AMT, may suffer from antimicrobial-resistant keratitis, necessitating microbial identification and drug susceptibility testing such as MALDI-TOF-MS.