By Kwek Soo Chin, Optometrist, International Eye Cataract Retina Centre at Farrer Park Medical Centre and Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre
Dr Niall Crosby, Consultant Ophthalmologist at International Eye Cataract Retina Centre, gave a Continuing Medical Education (CME) lecture on “The Modern Management of Acute Postoperative Endophthalmitis” to fellow ophthalmologists in Singapore on 21 July 2021. Endophthalmitis is an infection of the eye and is one of the most-devastating complications of eye surgery. The CME lecture was organised by Mount Elizabeth Hospital and was chaired by Dr Richard Fan. The lecture was conducted online due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr Crosby drew on several years of research that he undertook during his fellowships at the University of Auckland, New Zealand and at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, as well as real-life examples of cases that he managed as in Singapore, to provide other eye specialists with an evidence-based update for managing this difficult infection.
Dr Crosby recommended that ophthalmologists consider an immediate vitrectomy combined with intravitreal antibiotics as their standard treatment for endophthalmitis, rather than vitreous needle-biopsy plus antibiotics. He also recommended the early use of high dose systemic steroids to reduce the severe inflammation that accompanies this infection, and which can result in severe retinal damage.
Dr Crosby emphasised that vitrectomy technology and operating viewing systems have undergone enormous changes over the past couple of decades and this has made vitrectomy surgery safer and allowed eye surgeons to re-evaluate their approach to treating endophthalmitis.
