The objective of this study was to determine the effect of
vitamin C supplementation on reducing the size of
corneal opacity resulting from infectious
keratitis.The study included 82 patients (82 affected eyes), admitted for infectious
keratitis from January 2009 to August 2013, who were followed for more than 3 months. Patients were divided into control, oral
vitamin C (3 g/d), and intravenous
vitamin C (20 g/d) groups during hospitalization.
Corneal opacity sizes were measured using anterior segment photographs and Image J program (version 1.27; National Institutes of Health, Jinju, South Korea) at admission, discharge, and final follow-up. The
corneal opacity size used for analysis was the measured opacity size divided by the size of the whole cornea.The
corneal opacity size decreased by 0.03 ± 0.10 in the oral
vitamin C group, 0.07 ± 0.22 in the intravenous
vitamin C group, and 0.02 ± 0.15 in the control group. Intravenous
vitamin C reduced the
corneal opacity size more than oral
vitamin C (P = 0.043). Intravenous
vitamin C produced greater reduction in
corneal opacity size in younger patients (P = 0.015) and those with a hypopyon (P = 0.036).Systemic
vitamin C supplementation reduced the size of
corneal opacity resulting from infectious
keratitis. Intravenous
vitamin C was more beneficial than oral supplementation, especially in younger patients and those with hypopyon.