title: Conjunctival bacterial flora in fellow eyes of patients with unilateral nasolacrimal duct obstruction and its changes after successful dacryocystorhinostomy surgery.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the results of conjunctival culture in fellow eyes of patients with unilateral nasolacrimal duct obstruction (NLDO) and its changes after successful dacryocystorhinostomy (DCR) surgery.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this prospective study, 71 adult patients with unilateral NLDO and 41 age and sex-matched controls without NLDO were evaluated. The patients were divided into 2 groups based on clinical examination; group A with purulent regurgitation and group B without purulent regurgitation. They all underwent DCR. Before DCR surgery, microbiologic specimens were taken bilaterally from the conjunctiva of both eyes. Postoperative conjunctival sampling was continued weekly until the culture became negative or the colony count reached to the range of the control group.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were 38 and 33 patients in groups A and B, respectively. Silicone tube was inserted for 17 patients (23.9%). The culture was positive for bacterial growth in 56 fellow eyes (79%). The conjunctival culture in the control group was positive in 17 eyes (41.4%). The mean count of colonies in a sample unit was 624.73 ± 2412.31, 195.75 ± 407.56, and 9.5 ± 1.5 for group A, group B, and controls, respectively. The mean time of normalization of specimens was 1.43 ± 0.69 weeks (range 1-4). Higher colony count at baseline and presence of silicone tube in infected eye were significantly associated with longer normalization time for fellow eye (P< 0.001 andP= 0.003 respectively).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study suggests that after successful DCR surgery, a waiting period of 4 weeks is needed for conjunctival bacterial cultures to become negative or reach the level of the normal eyes, in the fellow eyes of patients with unilateral NLDO.
authors.affiliation: Eye Research Center, Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Bahram
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Eshraghi
authors.affiliation: Eye Research Center, Rassoul Akram Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Sayyed Amirpooya
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Alemzadeh
authors.affiliation: Eye Research Center, Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Zohreh
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Abedinifar
keywords: Bacteria; Dacryocystorhinostomy; Nasolacrimal duct obstruction