Incidence of Acute Onset Endophthalmitis after Cataract Extraction Surgery at Tripoli Eye Hospital.

The aim of this study was to observe the incidence of acute onset endophthalmitis after cataract surgery in Tripoli Eyes Hospital between January 2015 until December2017. A retrospective study was reviewed all cases during three years by reviewing electronic surgical records.The study recorded the clinical and the microbial reultes of the recorded cases within the 6 weeks after cataract surgery . The study found that the The median age of patients was 74 years. The mean duration from day of cataract surgery to the day of diagnosis with endophthalmitis was 10 days. 5 of the 8 vitreous isolates produced culture positive growth. The 3 culture negative cases presented on postoperative days 5, 10 and 14.,topical 2% lidocaine gel was used in two (67%) before povidone-iodine preparation. Of the patients with endophthalmitis after a temporal clear cornea approach to phacoemulsification, 2 achieved a final visual acuity of counting finger or better, and 2 had a final visual acuity of hand motions or worse. One patient had a poor visual outcome due to endophthalmitis- not responding to the treatment ended with evisceration, whereas the other had a poor outcome .The study concluded thatthe incidence of endophthalmitis after clear cornea phacoemulsification (0.10%) was lower than the incidence after other approaches to cataract surgery (0.02%) in the current study,