COVID mask mandate did not increase incidence of endophthalmitis
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Compulsory mask use among patients during the COVID-19 pandemic did not increase the incidence of endophthalmitis during intravitreal injections, according to research presented at Cataract Surgery: Telling It Like It Is.
Kyle Blair, DO, of the department of ophthalmology at OhioHealth, and colleagues wrote in their poster that before their study, the incidence of intravitreal injection (IVI)-related infectious endophthalmitis (IE) due to patient mask use had not been fully explored.
“Mandatory face mask use during the COVID-19 pandemic introduced another variable that may affect rates of IVI-related IE,” they wrote. “Two recent studies proposed that patients wearing loose-fitting face masks may increase the risk of respiratory droplet contamination of the ocular surface.”
Researchers compared the incidence of intravitreal injection-related infectious endophthalmitis from April 29, 2019, to Feb. 28, 2020 (no-mask group) with the incidence from April 29, 2020, to Feb. 28, 2021 (mask group). April 29, 2020, was the date when mask use was mandated for patients and staff at Midwest Retina in Ohio, the center where the study was located.
In the no-mask group, 10 eyes developed endophthalmitis out of more than 20,586 intravitreal injections (0.049%, one case per 2,059 injections), and researchers attributed two of those cases to anti-VEGF-related intraocular inflammation.
In the mask group, eight eyes developed endophthalmitis out of 20,463 intravitreal injections (0.039%, one per 2,558 IVIs), and two cases were again due to anti-VEGF-related intraocular inflammation.
There was no significant difference in the incidence of endophthalmitis between the two groups. There was also no significant difference after excluding cases presumed to be caused by anti-VEGF-related intraocular inflammation.
“Although there is a theoretical risk of respiratory droplet contamination of the ocular surface with a loose-fitting mask, we observed no significant difference in the real-world incidence of IVI-related IE before and during mandatory mask use,” Blair and colleagues wrote.
Collapse
Blair K, et al. Rate of endophthalmitis after intravitreal injection with COVID-19 mask mandate. Presented at: Cataract Surgery: Telling It Like It Is. June 9-13, 2021; Amelia Island, Florida.
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts