Diagnosing Fungal Keratitis and Simultaneously Identifying and Keratitis with a Dot Hybridization Array.

Fungal keratitis (FK) is one of the most common microbial keratitis, which often leads to poor prognosis as a result of delayed diagnosis. Several studies implied that early differentiation of the two major FK, and keratitis, could be helpful in selecting effective anti-fungal regimens. Therefore, a novel dot hybridization array (DHA) was developed to diagnose FK and differentiate and keratitis in this study. One hundred forty-six corneal scrapes obtained from one hundred forty-six subjects impressed with clinically suspected FK were used to evaluate the performance of the DHA. Among these patients, 107 (73.3%) patients had actual FK confirmed by culture and DNA sequencing. We found that the DHA had 93.5% sensitivity and 97.4% specificity in diagnosing FK. In addition, this array had 93.2% sensitivity and 93.8% specificity in diagnosing keratitis, as well as 83.3% sensitivity and 100% specificity in diagnosing keratitis. Furthermore, it had 83.9% sensitivity and 100% specificity in identifying keratitis. Thus, this newly developed DHA will be beneficial to earlier diagnosis, more precise treatment, and improve prognosis of FK, by minimizing medical refractory events and surgical needs.