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REVIEW article

Front. Ophthalmol.
Sec. Inflammatory Eye Diseases
Volume 5 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fopht.2025.1493831
This article is part of the Research Topic Women in Inflammatory Eye Diseases: 2023 View all articles

Infectious Scleritis: a review of etiologies, clinical features and management strategies

Provisionally accepted
Supriya Sharma Supriya Sharma 1Jay U Sheth Jay U Sheth 2Somasheila I Murthy Somasheila I Murthy 1,3*
  • 1 Department of Cornea and Anterior Segment Services, Shantilal Shanghvi Eye Institute, Mumbai, India
  • 2 Department of Vitreo-retinal Services, Shantilal Shanghvi Eye Institute, Mumbai, India
  • 3 Shanilal Shanghvi Cornea Institute, L V Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, India

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Infectious scleritis is a severe and potentially vision-threatening inflammation of the sclera caused by microbial invasion. Unlike autoimmune scleritis, infectious scleritis is less common with a prevalence of 5-10% of all cases of scleritis. The initial clinical presentation may often resemble autoimmune scleritis, thus resulting in a delayed diagnosis, and poorer outcomes. A high level of suspicion is required in such cases and risk factors such as with a history of trauma or surgery and worsening or refractory to immunosuppressive medications as these may well be infectious. While in established cases, the classical clinical features enable us to diagnose as infectious etiology without much difficulty, the management remains a challenge. Majority of these cases require an aggressive approach with a combination of antimicrobial therapy and surgical treatment. Poor prognostic factors include delayed diagnosis, fungal etiology and presence of keratitis or endophthalmitis. In this review, the authors have summarized the prevalence, clinical and the microbiological profile, and management strategies of infectious scleritis and their outcomes.

    Keywords: Infectious Scleritis, scleral debridement, pseudomonas scleritis, Fungal scleritis, management of infectious scleritis, microbiological profile of infectious scleritis

    Received: 09 Sep 2024; Accepted: 07 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Sharma, Sheth and Murthy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Somasheila I Murthy, Shanilal Shanghvi Cornea Institute, L V Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, India

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.