Bacterial contamination of donor corneas stored in McCarey-Kaufman medium

A new method is presented for culturing eye bank corneas stored in McCarey-Kaufman (M-K) medium. Of 30 donor corneoscleral rims, each was cultured in three ways: a swab on the M-K medium, a swab of the cut edge, and by culture of a 0.2 micron filter through which an aliquot of solution had been passed and washed of any antibiotic. We found a much higher rate of positive cultures using the latter method than has previously been reported in the literature.