Purpose: To study the aerobic bacterial conjunctival flora in patients with clinical diagnosis of acute viral conjunctivitis. Method: Thirty patients between 18 and 30 years with acute adenoviral conjunctivitis and 30 normal subjects underwent conjunctival culture examination. Material from the conjunc-tiva of patients with conjunctivitis was collected within the first 3 days of onset of the symptoms. Blood-agar and chocolate-agar plates were used for culture. Patients under any topical or systemic medication, contact lens wearers, patients with ocular or systemic disease were excluded. Results: Significant positivity in culture results of patients with adenoviral conjunctivitis was observed (33.3%, among which 50% were Haemophylus influenzae and 50% were Streptococcus pneumoniae), when compared to conjunctival culture of normal subjects (6.6% of coagulase-negative staphylococci). There was no clinical difference related to the isolation of bacteria in the conjunctival sample of all patients. Conclusion: Patients with clinically diagnosed viral conjunctivitis have a higher rate of positive cultures when compared to controls. Nevertheless, this finding does not correlate with clinical differences. Microorganisms isolated in the conjunctiva of patients with adenoviral conjunctivitis were different from those isolated in the conjunctiva of normal subjects.
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