Studying the Efficacy of Gatifloxacin 0.5% Eye Drops Preoperatively in
Decreasing the Colony Forming Units (CFU) in Conjunctival Cultures

Aim: To study the efficacy of gatifloxacin 0.5% eyedrops preoperatively in decreasing the CFU in conjunctival cultures in patients undergoing phacoemulsification cataract surgery.
Settings and design: Cross sectional, interventional, single blind, comparative study.
Material and methods: 40 eyes of 40 patients between the age group of 50-80 years were included in the study after simple randomization. Each eye was treated with one drop of 0.5 % gatifloxacin eye drops for 5 times at an interval of 30 minutes prior to surgery. Pre-antibiotic treatment conjunctival cultures were taken and other posttreatment conjunctival cultures were obtained half an hour after instillation of last drop of antibiotic. The number of CFU was recorded.
Results: The organisms isolated were coagulase-negative Staphylococcus (CoNS)- Staphylococcus epidermidis (72.5%), Corynebacterium diphtheriae (22.5%), Haemophilus influenzae (10%), Staphylococcus aureus (10%), Propionibacterium acnes (10%), Streptococcus pneumoniae (5%). All the eyes showed significant reduction in the CFU (p<0.05) in the conjunctival cultures after treating with 0.5% gatifloxacin eye drops.
Conclusions: Using 0.5% gatifloxacin eye drops preoperatively on the day of surgery alone is a valuable treatment for decreasing the conjunctival bacterial load in patients undergoing cataract surgery.