Diagnostic Accuracy of a CRISPR-Based Assay in Smear- and Culture-Negative Fungal Keratitis

What is the accuracy of the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)–based Rapid Identification of Mycoses using CRISPR (RID-MyC) assay for diagnosing fungal keratitis (FK) in patients with negative smear and culture results using in vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM) as the reference standard?In this diagnostic study of 41 patients with smear- and culture-negative FK, RID-MyC showed good sensitivity and fair specificity relative to IVCM, with concordance in most cases; discordance was associated with prior antifungal therapy and ulcer size and location.These findings suggest that the RID-MyC assay provides rapid, accessible detection of FK in patients with smear- and culture-negative results, supporting its role as an adjunct when conventional methods fail.

Corresponding Author: Siddharth Narendran, MBBS, P. Namperumalsamy Regional Research Centre, Aravind Eye Hospital, Avinashi Road, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu 641014, India (siddharth@aravind.org).

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