title: Severe herpetic keratitis. I: Prevalence of visual impairment in a clinic population.
abstract: We report a prevalence study of the best visual acuity in the affected eye of 100 selected patients with herpetic keratitis seen during a two-year period. Sixty-two patients retained an acuity of 6/9 or better without requiring penetrating keratoplasty (PK). The prevalence of reduced visual acuity severe enough to warrant PK was 33%. Patients requiring PK for whom full clinical records were available suffered a mean of 6.8 episodes of keratitis. In this group of patients the vision of 18 fell from 6/6 to 6/60 over a mean period of 8.5 years. Once visual acuity was permanently reduced to 6/12, 78% of patients proceeded to lose vision to 6/60. Unilateral visual impairment occurs in at least a third of patients with severe herpetic keratitis. Once vision falls permanently to 6/12, the long-term prognosis for vision appears to be poor.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001766:Blindness / Q000209:etiology; D016039:Corneal Transplantation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007635:Keratitis, Dendritic / Q000150:complications* / Q000601:surgery; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D014792:Visual Acuity