donor eye contamination before and after decontamination process in the eye bank of the i.r. of iran

purpose: to evaluate bacterial and fungal contamination of donor corneas before and after decontamination at eye bank of i.r. of iran based on cultures. methods: this descriptive study was performed on 131 donor eyes (whole globe or cut cornea) used for corneal transplantation at labbafinejad hospital during a 6-month period. microbiologic culture was performed at three stages: before enucleation at the forensic medicine unit, after decontamination process at the eye bank and before transplantation in the at operation room. prevalence of contamination with 95% confidence interval (95% ci) at each stage of the study was calculated. results: donor tissue included 60 (45.8%) whole globes and 71 (54.2%) preserved cut corneas. cultures were positive in 92.2% (ci 95%; 89.8-98%) of specimens before enucleation, 7.6% (c i 95%, 2.1-12.1) after decontamination, and only in 3.1% (ci 95%; 0.1- 6%) before transplantation. there was no case of postkeratoplasty endophthalmitis. staphylococcus epidermidis was the most frequent organism found before enucleation (32.1%) and after decontamination (3.05%). there was no correlation between frequency of contamination and cause of death, preservation time, and death to enucleation time. fungal contamination was found only in one specimen. conclusions: the decontamination process of the eye bank of the i.r. of iran seems to be effective. endophthalmitis following penetrating keratoplasty is rare under standard operating room and eye bank methods. staphylococcus epidermidis is the most frequent organism, cultured from eye bank specimens.