Eyelid surgery for refractory filamentary keratitis

PURPOSE: Cases of filamentary keratitis that are unresponsive to conventional medical treatment methods are often encountered in the clinical setting. Here we report on cases of filamentary keratitis that showed no recurrence for long periods after performing eyelid surgery. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Enrolled were 17 eyes of 13 patients with filamentary keratitis who had eyelid surgery (4 men and 9 women ranging in age from 54-89 years; mean age: 73.6 years). Ptosis operations were performed with blepharoptosis (14 eyes of 11 patients) and entropion operations were performed on cases with filamentary keratitis but without entropion (3 eyes of 2 patients). RESULTS: Following blepharoptosis, the filamentary keratitis disappeared in all cases except in one which experienced a recurrence of filamentary keratitis probably due to the recurrence of ptosis. However, the filamentary keratitis in that case also disappeared following reoperation for the blepharoptosis. After entropion surgery, the keratitis disappeared in all cases with eye drops. CONCLUSION: The satisfactory, long-term postoperative results obtained in this study suggest that eyelid surgery is an effective treatment for filamentary keratitis unresponsive to conventional medical treatment methods.