Introduction:

severe corneal ulcer is a disease that is not treated in a timely manner, usually with complications and sequelae and can compromise visual function, requiring strict monitoring and hospitalization.

Objective:

to describe the clinical-epidemiological behavior of patients diagnosed with severe corneal ulcer.

Methods:

descriptive, cross-sectional study in 52 hospitalized patients diagnosed with severe corneal ulcer at “Arnaldo Milián Castro” Hospital in Villa Clara Province in the period from January 2016 to December 2019.

Results:

Men predominated (67.3%) with ages of 60 years and older, this same age group had the highest number of patients (63.4%), 75% were of rural origin and here the male sex contributed 50%, systemic diseases were the main predisposing factor in 69.2%, in 71, Bacteria were isolated from 2% of the culture samples, so vancomycin and ceftazidime in fortified eye drops were used, each one, in 40 of the patients in the study, 34.6% presented complications and it was corneal perforation (19.2%) the predominant one, 67.3% maintained a hospital stay of 8 to 14 days.

Conclusions:

severe infectious keratitis is frequent in older male adults of rural origin, systemic diseases are the main predisposing factor, bacteria are the causal agent in the majority, vancomycin and ceftazidime fortified eye drops were mainly used and complications, such as corneal perforation, lead to an increase in hospital stay.

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