Purpose: To assess the influence of donor, environment and storage factors on the contamination rate of organ-cultured corneas, to consider the microbiological species causing corneal contamination and to investigate the corresponding sensitivities.
Methods: Data from 1340 consecutive donor corneas were analysed retrospectively. Logistic regression analysis was used to assess the influence of different factors on the contamination rate of organ-cultured corneas for transplantation.
Results: The mean annual contamination rate was 1.8 ± 0.4% (range: 1.3-2.1%); 50% contaminations were of fungal origin with exclusively Candida species, and 50% contaminations were of bacterial origin with Staphylococcus species being predominant. The cause of donor death including infection and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome increased the risk of bacterial or fungal contamination during organ culture (p = 0.007 and p = 0.014, respectively). Differentiating between septic and aseptic donors showed an increased risk of contamination for septic donors (p = 0.0020). Mean monthly temperature including warmer months increased the risk of contamination significantly (p = 0.0031). Sex, donor age, death to enucleation, death to corneoscleral disc excision and storage time did not increase the risk of contamination significantly.
Conclusion: The genesis of microbial contamination in organ-cultured donor corneas seems to be multifactorial. The main source of fungal or bacterial contamination could be resident species from the skin flora. The rate of microbial contamination in organ-cultured donor corneas seems to be dependent on the cause of donor death and mean monthly temperature.
Keywords: contamination; cornea; corneal storage; microbiologic testing; organ culture.
© 2017 Acta Ophthalmologica Scandinavica Foundation. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.