Association between nonadministration of subconjunctival cefuroxime and postoperative endophthalmitis

Purpose: To determine whether not administering subconjunctival cefuroxime during cataract surgery is associated with postoperative endophthalmitis. Setting: Southampton Eye Unit, Southampton General Hospital, England. Methods: This retrospective, case-control study comprised nine patients who developed endophthalmitis after cataract surgery in a single ophthalmic unit over a 21 month period. Ten control patients for each case were randomly chosen from patients having cataract surgery within 1 week of the endophthalmitis case. Results: None of the nine endophthalmitis patients received peroperative subconjunctival cefuroxime compared with 43 of 90 control patients (47.8%) (P = 0.008). No other variables were found to be associated with development of endophthalmitis in this study. Conclusion: Nonadministration of subconjunctival cefuroxime was associated with subsequent endophthalmitis. A further study to determine whether the observed association is causal is therefore warranted.