Abstract
Purpose:
Investigate the association among infectious blepharitis and systemic diseases through an epidemiological study, using conventional techniques and molecular biology tools.
Methods:
We have studied 100 blepharitis cases and 31 control cases that were randomly chosen. Clinical history was obtained from questioning. The interval of age was from 4 to 81 years old. 4 to 6 eyelashes from each eye were taken from each individual in order to search for Demodex folliculorum under light microscopy. 100 scraping palpebral sample were taken to extract DNA and identify bacteria and fungus using PCR technique. The results were analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis test and Student t test, a p<0.05 was considered as a statistically significant difference.
Results:
In both groups of studies, the female gender was more common, representing 58% in blepharitis cases (BC) and 51.6% in control cases (CC) and mainly between the 60th and 70th decade of life (26%). From the 100 blepharitis cases, 49% were posterior blepharitis, 25% meibomitis, 17% squamous blepharitis, 5% anterior blepharitis and 4% blepharoconjuntivitis. In the microbiologic study we found D. folliculorum: 34% in BC against 12.9% in CC, p=0.0122. We found in BC that the microbiological agents were: Bacteria 40%, D. folliculorum 8%, Fungus 0%; and co-infections: Bacteria / D. follicolorum 22%, Bacteria / Fungus 7%, Fungus / D. folliculorum 2% and Bacteria / Fungus / D. folliculorum 2%. With respect to systemic diseases, only Diabetes Mellitus type 2 was significantly related to blepharitis with p=0.0265.
Conclusions:
This study is about infection blepharitis and systemic diseases associated, and we found an association only with diabetes mellitus type 2. It is necessary to perform various studies to define the common immunological mechanism involved in both pathologies.
Keywords: 479 cornea: clinical science •
480 cornea: basic science •
498 diabetes