Mortality of hospitalized patients with Candida endophthalmitis

Background: Candidais becoming an important nosocomial pathogen as the incidence of hospital-acquired candidemia is rising.Candidaendophthalmitis is a good indicator of systemic candidiasis in hospitalized patients. Methods: Thirteen (17%) of 76 ophthalmologic consultations forCandidaendophthalmitis in our institution had positive findings during a 12-month period. We studied these 13 patients withCandidaendophthalmitis to evaluate their outcomes. Results: All 13 patients were admitted to a large tertiary care hospital, and 10 (77%) were in an intensive care unit. The overall mortality was 77% for all patients and 80% for the intensive care patients. This mortality was higher than the overall mortality for all patients in the surgical intensive care unit in our institution (17%), as well as the mortality for our patients with candidemia in the surgical intensive care unit (61%). Conclusions: The strikingly high mortality in our group of patients withCandidaendophthalmitis reflects the fact that they are a seriously ill group with multiple risk factors forCandidainfection. This information suggests that the presence ofCandidaendophthalmitis is a good indicator of high mortality in seriously ill patients in intensive care units. (Arch Intern Med. 1994;154:2093-2097)