Abstract
Purpose :
To determine if the organisms cultured from corneal ulcers are found on patients' cell phone screens.
Methods :
Patients at our tertiary care center with a new diagnosis of infectious keratitis and who also possessed a cell phone were enrolled. Fungal, bacterial, and viral cultures were taken from the corneal ulcer as per standard protocol. A second set of cultures were then obtained by swabbing the patient’s cell phone screen.
Results :
26 patients (male n=14, female n=12, mean age 47.2 + 16.8) were enrolled. 50% (n=13) of patients were contact lens wearers. 38.5% of patients were on antibiotic eye drops prior to presentation to our institution and prior to culture being taken. 15 patients had positive corneal cultures (Figure 1). Organisms cultured included Pseudomonas aeruginosa (41%), Streptococcus viridans (12%), Serratia marcescens (11%), Acinetobacter baumanii (6%), Candida albicans (6%), Enterobacter cloacae (6%), Haemophilus influenzae (6%), latex-negative Staphylococcus (6%), and Staphylococcus aureus (6%). 3 patients had positive cell phone cultures (Figure 2). Cell phone organisms included Acinetobacter baumanii (25%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (25%), latex-negative Staphylococcus (25%), and Staphylococcus aureus (25%). A cell phone culture that grew latex-negative Staphylococcus matched its respective corneal ulcer culture.
Conclusions :
Our study concludes that cell phone screens do in fact carry bacteria that are known to cause infectious keratitis. However, only 1 patient had the same pathogen grow from both his cell phone and the corneal ulcer. There does not appear to be a correlation between infectious keratitis and contaminated cell phones.
This is a 2020 ARVO Annual Meeting abstract.