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Twenty Years of Acanthamoeba Diagnostics in Austria

Acanthamoebae are the causative agents of an often seriously progressing keratitis (AK) occurring predominantly in contact lens wearers and can cause several disseminating infections potentially resulting in granulomatous amoebic encephalitis (GAE) in the immunocompromised host. Our institution is t...

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Autores principales: Walochnik, Julia, Scheikl, Ute, Haller-Schober, Eva-Maria
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4342769/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25047131
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jeu.12149
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author Walochnik, Julia
Scheikl, Ute
Haller-Schober, Eva-Maria
author_facet Walochnik, Julia
Scheikl, Ute
Haller-Schober, Eva-Maria
author_sort Walochnik, Julia
collection PubMed
description Acanthamoebae are the causative agents of an often seriously progressing keratitis (AK) occurring predominantly in contact lens wearers and can cause several disseminating infections potentially resulting in granulomatous amoebic encephalitis (GAE) in the immunocompromised host. Our institution is the Austrian reference laboratory for Acanthamoeba diagnostics and the aim of this study was to give an overview of proven cases of Acanthamoeba infections in Austria during the past 20 yr. All samples of patients with suspected AK or GAE were screened for Acanthamoeba spp. by culture and/or PCR and the detected amoebae were genotyped. Altogether, 154 cases of AK and three cases of GAE were diagnosed. Age of the AK patients ranged from 8 to 82 yr (mean 37.8) and 58% of the patients were female. Approximately 89% of the AK patients were contact lens wearers, almost all cases were unilateral and 19% of the patients required a keratoplasty. Age of the GAE patients ranged from 2 to 25 yr (mean 14.7), all were HIV-negative, but two were severely immunosuppressed at the time of diagnosis. The predominant genotype in the AK cases was T4, other genotypes found were T3, T5, T6, T10 and T11. The three GAE cases involved genotypes T2, T4 and T5.
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spelling pubmed-43427692015-03-04 Twenty Years of Acanthamoeba Diagnostics in Austria Walochnik, Julia Scheikl, Ute Haller-Schober, Eva-Maria J Eukaryot Microbiol Original Articles Acanthamoebae are the causative agents of an often seriously progressing keratitis (AK) occurring predominantly in contact lens wearers and can cause several disseminating infections potentially resulting in granulomatous amoebic encephalitis (GAE) in the immunocompromised host. Our institution is the Austrian reference laboratory for Acanthamoeba diagnostics and the aim of this study was to give an overview of proven cases of Acanthamoeba infections in Austria during the past 20 yr. All samples of patients with suspected AK or GAE were screened for Acanthamoeba spp. by culture and/or PCR and the detected amoebae were genotyped. Altogether, 154 cases of AK and three cases of GAE were diagnosed. Age of the AK patients ranged from 8 to 82 yr (mean 37.8) and 58% of the patients were female. Approximately 89% of the AK patients were contact lens wearers, almost all cases were unilateral and 19% of the patients required a keratoplasty. Age of the GAE patients ranged from 2 to 25 yr (mean 14.7), all were HIV-negative, but two were severely immunosuppressed at the time of diagnosis. The predominant genotype in the AK cases was T4, other genotypes found were T3, T5, T6, T10 and T11. The three GAE cases involved genotypes T2, T4 and T5. Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2015-01 2014-09-25 /pmc/articles/PMC4342769/ /pubmed/25047131 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jeu.12149 Text en © 2014 The Authors. The Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Society of Protistologists http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Articles
Walochnik, Julia
Scheikl, Ute
Haller-Schober, Eva-Maria
Twenty Years of Acanthamoeba Diagnostics in Austria
title Twenty Years of Acanthamoeba Diagnostics in Austria
title_full Twenty Years of Acanthamoeba Diagnostics in Austria
title_fullStr Twenty Years of Acanthamoeba Diagnostics in Austria
title_full_unstemmed Twenty Years of Acanthamoeba Diagnostics in Austria
title_short Twenty Years of Acanthamoeba Diagnostics in Austria
title_sort twenty years of acanthamoeba diagnostics in austria
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4342769/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25047131
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jeu.12149
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