[Chlamydial disease of the eye: a report on 27 cases. Clinical picture, differential diagnosis, treatment (author's transl)].

During the past five years a presumptive diagnosis of ocular chlamydial disease has been made in 90 patients consulting the outpatient department of Freiburg University Eye Clinic. The diagnosis was confirmed by different methods (giemsa stains, chlamydia cultures and serology, electron microscopy and histology) in 27 cases. The clinical spectrum included inclusion blennorrhea in newborns as well as inclusion conjunctivitis, TRIC keratoconjunctivitis and sporadic trachoma in adults. Presumably the incidence of the disease is much higher than indicated by our figures. We suspect a very high number of undiagnosed cases. These patients usually do not receive proper therapy (tetracyclin or erythromycin for at least three weeks) and their disease may run a protracted course with the risk of permanent eye damage.