Knowledge, attitude, and practice toward mucormycosis among patients presenting to six tertiary eye care hospitals in South India – A multicentric online questionnaire-based survey

Purpose: To study the awareness on mucormycosis among outpatients who visited six tertiary eye care hospitals at Madurai, Pondicherry, Coimbatore, Tirunelveli, Chennai, and Tirupati. Methods: This was a telephone?based survey conducted using questionnaires consisting of 38 questions in five sections from July 5 to 25, 2021. Patients visiting the eye hospitals for an examination were contacted over their phones and responses were directly entered onto the Google forms platform. Results: A total of 4573 participants were included in the study. Among all participants, a cumulative 83% of participants had some knowledge of mucormycosis. More than 80% of them reported that their prime source of information was through mass communication like television or radio. Around 34.8% of the respondents were aware that it can occur after treatment for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID?19) infection, only half of them (54.3%) knew that systemic steroids were the main risk factor. The knowledge scores were higher for participants who were diabetics (n = 1235) or had been affected by COVID?19 earlier (n = 456) or whose friends had mucormycosis earlier (n = 312). Knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) scores of nonprofessional health?care workers (n = 103) were much better compared to patients. Conclusion: Such KAP studies give us an idea of the impact of the measures taken for educating the public. In this study, a cumulative 83% of participants had some knowledge of mucormycosis and 86% knew that this was an emergency. More than 50% of the participants were not aware that diabetes is a risk factor for mucormycosis.

Eosinophilic angiocentric fibrosis of the orbit: A case report and review of literature.

Eosinophilic angiocentric fi brosis is a rare condition presenting with tumefactive lesions of the nasal cavity, paranasal sinuses, upper respiratory tract and rarely the orbit; and has characteristic histopathological features. We report the case of a 38-year-old lady with a mass lesion in right orbit. Histopathological examination of the biopsy specimen revealed extensive areas of perivascular fi brosis showing a characteristic angiocentric whirling with onion skin pattern; along with perivascular exudates of eosinophils accompanied by collection of plasma cells and lymphocytes. Rheumatology review and autoimmune screening was negative. She underwent surgical debulking followed by tapering course of oral steroids and was completely free of orbital disease at her last follow-up visit.