Anti-acanthamoeba activity of multipurpose contact lens solutions against acanthamoeba SPP. of keratitis patients / Siti Aisyah Amarang

Acanthamoeba spp. is an opportunistic free-living amoeba that widely distributed in the environment and it has tendency to produce serious corneal infection that can result in permanent visual impairment or blindness known as chronic Acanthamoeba keratitis (CAK). Approximately 92% of Acanthamoeba keratitis patients were among contact lens wearers. Therefore, the usage of effective multipurpose contact lens solutions is currently recommended to prevent Acanthamoeba keratitis among contact lens wearers. This study was performed to determine the effectiveness of multipurpose contact lens solutions against Acanthamoeba spp. after 4, 6, 8 and 24 hours soaking time and also to classify the group of Acanthamoeba spp. based on their morphology using methylene blue stain. To determine the effectiveness of multipurpose contact lens solutions, two clinical specimens from keratitis patients were tested with five multipurpose contact lens solutions in which AOsept ® Plus, Oxysept ® , Opti-free ® Puremoist ® and Complete ® Revitalens ™ . The specimens were isolated in triplicate on nonnutrient agar seeded with heat-killed Escherichia coli suspension and been incubate at 30⁰C. Daily screening for the presence of Acanthamoeba spp. was done up to two weeks by using inverted microscope. The morphology of Acanthamoeba spp. was identified using methylene blue stain. Fisher‟s exact test was applied to determine the significance value of the results. The results revealed that both of hydrogen peroxide and non-hydrogen peroxide multipurpose contact lens solutions used in this study did not shows any anti-Acanthamoeba activity after 4, 6, 8 and 24 hours. This result is not significance since the p-value was higher than 0.001. Regarding to the morphology of Acanthamoeba spp., both of clinical isolates belongs to Group II of Acanthamoeba spp. As a conclusion, multipurpose contact lens solutions used in this study were not effective as anti-Acanthamoeba agents because of the active compounds in the contact lens solutions were insufficient. Thus, the addition of extra active compound in contact lens solutions such as propylene glycol for the disinfection of Acanthamoeba spp. should be developed in order to reduce the incidence rates of CAK among contact lens wearers.