Case of the Month - June 2019

Case of the month archive

A 59 year old woman with history of a right corneal ulcer presented to the eye clinic because of sharp pain in the right eye for five days. The pain was constant and associated with a cloudy discharge. An ocular examination revealed a 3.5 by 2.5 mm ulceration on the superior-temporal region of the cornea with cloudy infiltrates overlying the ulcerated region. The ophthalmologist obtained direct specimens from the ulcer for Gram stain and cultures.

Figure 1 shows the Gram stain and Figure 2 shows growth on blood agar after several days.

  1. What is the organism?
  2. What do you do next (two choices) to confirm the genus and species?
  • June-2019a.jpg

    Figure 1: Gram stain from the corneal ulcer.

  • June-2019b.png

    Figure 2: growth on blood agar from direct plating of the corneal ulcer.