Clinical analysis and predictive factors associated with improved visual acuity of infectious endophthalmitis

To describe the clinical characteristics and analyze the predictive factors associated with improved visual acuity of 359 patients with infectious endophthalmitis.

This study retrospectively analyzed 359 eyes of 359 patients with infectious endophthalmitis from January 2014 to December 2018. The findings summarized some epidemiological characteristics of these patients, including age, sex, occupation, patient visit time, etiology, causative organisms, therapy, and best-corrected visual acuity. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to predict the relative factors of improved visual acuity (VA).

Overall, 283 (78.83%) patients were male. The mean age was 48.0 ± 18.27 years. Ocular trauma, especially open globe injuries (246, 68.5%) was the most common etiology of infectious endophthalmitis in this study. The etiologies of infectious endophthalmitis were open globe injuries (68.5%), intraocular surgery (22.6%), and corneal ulcer-associated (6.7%) and endogenous causes (2.2%). In the etiology classification and visual acuity improvement group, had statistically significant differences in factors such as age, sex, patient visit time, pre-therapy visual acuity, etc. The average Logarithm of the Minimum Angle of Resolution (logMAR) best-corrected visual acuity on pre-therapy was 2.28 ± 0.60, and it had significantly improved to 1.67 ± 0.83 post-therapy (P < 0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed that visit time > 7 day (P = 0.034, OR = 0.522, 95% CI: 0.286–0.953), pre-therapy VA ≦logMAR 2.3 (P = 0.032, OR = 1.809, 95% CI: 1.052–3.110), post-surgical (vs. posttraumatic; P = 0.023, OR = 2.100, 95% CI: 1.109–3.974), and corneal ulcer-associated etiologies (vs. posttraumatic; P = 0.005, OR = 0.202, 95%CI: 0.066–0.621) were significantly associated with improved visual acuity after adjusting for possible confounding factors.

Among the patients with infectious endophthalmitis, middle-aged male, especially farmers and workers, accounted for a large proportion. Open globe injuries were the main cause and the gram-positive bacteria were the major causative organisms. The final visual outcomes seemed to vary according to the type of endophthalmitis, but early treatment and good initial visual acuity were important factors for visual acuity improvement.