Determination of Herpetic Keratitis Frequency Using Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) Method in Isfahan, Iran

Herpetic keratitis which is resulted from herpes simplex virus type I, is considered the most common cause of corneal blindness that needs being diagnosed and treated in order to prevent irreversible eye effects. The best method to diagnose it is molecular method which has high sensitivity and exclusivity. The current study was done on 25 eye samples collected from patients referred to the Feyz hospital of Isfahan who were diagnosed with herpetic keratitis disease. After cornea sampling and extracting DNA from eye samples, LAMP-PCR technique was done to search genome of herpes simplex virus type I. Among 25 suspected cases of herpetic keratitis, 5 samples were confirmed to have genome virus of HSV1 and herpetic keratitis frequency was determined by 20%. The results of this investigation showed a relative high frequency of herpetic keratitis in this zone using LAMP-PCR diagnostic method compared with similar studies which indicates high sensitivity of this technique. Therefore, using such rapid, accurate and cheap molecular method is suggested