Active clinical trials for "Corneal Ulcer"

A community-randomized trial comparing villages randomized to receive an intervention consisting of a trained community health volunteer who brings patients to the nearest Vision Centers or Primary Health Care Centers for treatment after diagnosing a corneal abrasion to control villages receiving no additional intervention. The primary outcome of corneal ulcer will be measured by baseline and annual population-based census performed in both intervention and control villages by masked examiners from baseline to 24 months. Each resident in the village will be asked about their ocular history and, if suspected of having a corneal ulcer, will be examined for evidence of a corneal opacity. Annual visits will occur, coinciding with the end of the harvest season. In villages randomized to intervention, an active promotion campaign will be undertaken to urge residents to notify the village eye health worker within 24 hours of ocular trauma. In control villages, abrasions and ulcers will be treated if they present to a clinic or are found during the annual monitoring visits, but active promotion of corneal abrasion care will not be offered.

The aim of this study is to see if multiplex strip PCR will detect the pathogen that causing eye infection from the corneal scraping samples with higher sensitivity and specificity than the current gold standard.

Corneal diseases are a major cause of blindness worldwide, and corneal infections are a substantial cause of blindness in Asia. The aim of the Asia Cornea Society Infectious Keratitis Study (ACSIKS) is to study infectious keratitis (corneal infections) in Asian countries, so as to improve strategies for prevention and treatment, and to reduce the burden of blindness in Asia. The first phase of ACSIKS is an 18-month observational study involving 11 eye hospitals in 8 Asian countries; these hospitals manage more than 6700 cases of corneal infections every year. From the first quarter of 2012, all patients with a corneal infection will be recruited and a standard ACSIKS protocol will be applied; this protocol includes the use of a common set of study forms and a suggested panel of microbiological examinations. However, each centre will be continue to treat their patients with the anti-infective therapy standard for their centre. Data will be recorded for each patient for a period of six months, including their medical and surgical management, the final clinical outcome and vision. Bacterial and fungal growths from patients will also be stored for further research during a second phase of ACSIKS. These studies will focus on evaluating the resistance of the most common bacterial infections to the current available antibiotics, performing DNA testing to compare our strains with bacterial infections in the West, and to developing new diagnostic tests and anti-infective therapies tailored to corneal infections in Asia.