[Advances of molecular diagnosis in infectious keratitis]

Infectious keratitis is a serious eye disease that may cause blindness. Currently, microbial culture remains the gold standard for diagnosis of many ocular infections, but the technique is limited by low sensitivity and time consuming. Developing rapid and sensitive early diagnostic methods for infectious keratitis is important for guiding timely and effective treatment in clinical practice. Molecular diagnostic techniques use detection of specific nucleic acid sequences as evidence for presence of suspected pathogens. This kind of techniques develops very fast because of its sensitive, specific, rapid and high-throughput advantages. In this review, we highlight recent advances in the application of molecular diagnostic techniques in the diagnosis of infectious keratitis, and discuss the problems and prospects of molecular diagnosis for detecting pathogens in keratitis.