Abstract
A 39-year-old farm worker was injured in her right eye by a piece of wire, which resulted in a corneal ulcer unresponsive to antibiotic treatment. The clinical appearance was that of a corneal infiltrate with feathery borders resembling fungal keratitis. Corneal scrapings were collected and the patient was started on natamycin 5% eye drops, fluconazole 0.3% eye drops, and oral fluconazole. A non-sporulating fungus was isolated from the samples. Based upon macroscopic and microscopic morphologic features, it was provisionally identified as a Papulaspora species due to the fact that members of this genus generally do not form diagnostically useful conidia. However, it was found through the use of ITS sequencing that the isolate clustered within the ascomycete genus Chaetomium. The sequence did not fully match with any sequences of available ex-type strains of Chaetomium, Thielavia and Papulaspora and hence might belong to an undescribed specie. However, without diagnostic morphological features the taxon cannot be introduced as a novel member of the genus Chaetomium. Antifungal susceptibility testing was performed according to published standards. The corneal ulcer was successfully treated with six weeks of antifungal therapy.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by an unrestricted grant from Research to Prevent Blindness, Inc (VVM). The authors thank Elizabeth Thompson for work up of the isolate, as well as Dora McCarthy and Annette Fothergill for the in vitro susceptibility testing.
Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
This paper was first published online on Early Online on 27 September 2011