[The prevalence of Demodex folliculorum infection in patients attending a general ophthalmological consultation].
OBJECTIVE
Determining Demodex folliculorum infection prevalence in patients attending general ophthalmological consultation and such infection's association with blepharitis.


METHODS
This was a descriptive study of such prevalence. 128 subjects who attended the Virgilio Galvis Eye Centre were randomly selected and the presence of D. folliculorum was determined in 4 eyelashes taken from each of them.


RESULTS
D. folliculorum infection prevalence was 42.1% (n=54); blepharitis was diagnosed in 38.3% of the patients (n=49) and 63.2% of them (n=31) were positive for D. folliculorum. Only 29.2% of the individuals in the group without blepharitis (n=79) had mites (n=23) (p=0.0003). A higher number of parasites was found in patients with blepharitis (12.7 parasitic load index cf 5.1; p=0.0001); 25% (n=32) of the participants had scaling in the form of cylinders and 96.9% of these had the mites (n=31), whereas the mite was only present in 24% (n=23) of subjects who had no cylinder-type scaling (n=96).


CONCLUSIONS
Demodex folliculorum is a parasite found in people without ocular lesions; however, it is more frequent and has a higher parasite burden in patients with blepharitis. Our results suggested the need for investigating the presence of D. folliculorum in all patients suffering from blepharitis, especially in cases where cylinder-type scaling has been observed in their eyelashes.
Centro Oftalmológico Virgilio Galvis, Fundación Oftalmológica de Santander, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga. virgiliogalvis@gmail.com
Virgilio
V
Galvis-Ramírez
Alejandro
A
Tello-Hernández
Leonardo
L
Álvarez-Osorio
Juan J
JJ
Rey-Serrano
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000554:Ambulatory Care Facilities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000818:Animals; D001762:Blepharitis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000469:parasitology*; D003105:Colombia / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005140:Eyelashes / Q000469:parasitology*; D005260:Female; D018859:Hair Follicle / Q000469:parasitology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008924:Mite Infestations / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000469:parasitology; D008925:Mites / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D009885:Ophthalmology; D015995:Prevalence; D012494:Sampling Studies; D055815:Young Adult