Some intraocular & conjunctival effects of amphotericin B in man and in the rabbit.

Intraocular mycotic infection is rare, and it usually necessitates enucleation of the affected eye. We recently encountered three instances of fulminating fungus endophthalmitis occurring as a postsurgical complication of cataract extraction, in which a pure culture of the Volutella species * was isolated from each of the infected eyes. We believe that these cases are the first of this kind to be reported. In two cases the infection failed to respond to conventional therapy and was terminated only by enucleation of the eye. In an effort to check the progress of infection in the third eye, a new antifungal antibiotic, amphotericin B,† was administered by parenteral, conjunctival, and intraocular routes. This clinical trial of amphotericin B for ocular infection, together with the experimental use of the antibiotic in the eyes of rabbits, is the subject of this report. Amphotericin B is a polyene antifungal antibiotic which was isolated in 1955 by