TITLE:
The Incidence of Endophthalmitis Cases in an Island Nation
AUTHORS:
Isaac Bertuello, Sarah Refalo-Azzopardi, Anastasia Ghio
KEYWORDS:
Endophthalmitis, Malta, Ophthalmic Surgery Complications, Cataract, Intravitreal Injections
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Ophthalmology,
Vol.14 No.3,
August
13,
2024
ABSTRACT: Endophthalmitis is a severe ocular infection which can have sight threatening complications and should be treated urgently. Malta is an archipelago in the middle of the Mediterranean sea, with one main hospital (Mater Dei Hospital), where all emergency ophthalmic cases are referred during the years audited. This allowed the authors to review all the cases of endophthalmitis which presented to Mater Dei Hospital from 2009 to 2020 and to be able to reliably compare incidence of local endophthalmitis cases with worldwide quoted incidence rates. All theatre logbooks documenting procedures locally from 2009 to 2020 were reviewed and patients undergoing intravitreal tap and antibiotics injections were included in this audit. This was based on the assumption that all endophthalmitis cases which presented underwent these procedures. Data was analyzed and the average incidence of endophthalmitis cases noted and compared with international numbers. The local numbers are higher than the accepted average, taking into consideration sources of error during data collection for this audit. The authors suggest that a local standard operating procedure in terms of response of suspected endophthalmitis is needed as well as a register for local endophthalmitis cases.