Ocular Infection Management

Question 1

Describe 5 ocular protection mechanisms

Answer 1

anatomical barriers (lids/lashes/conj.)
Blinking (spreads tears evenly removing irritants)
Corneal Epithelium
Tear (Film) - antimicrobial protein components (lactoferrin/lysosymes/IgA/G/Leukocytes

Question 2

Describe a general ocular response to infection

Answer 2

pathogen stimulates innate immmune response causing pronounced vasodilation
WBCs/inflammatory factors emigrate
(if blinking/tears don’t prevent)
proliferating bacteria/WBC accummulation + goblet cells secrete mucus
Mucopurulent discharge!

Question 3

Explain the MoA for an RNA retrovirus (HIV) and 2 treatment methods

Answer 3

HIV: reverse transcriptase makes DNA copy of viral RNA to be integrated into host genome creating new viral material

Reverse transcriptase inhibitors (analogue nucleotide RTIs or non-nucleotide RTIs; denature RT catalytic site)

Protease inhibtitors inhibit viral proteases which cleave precursor polyproteins disrupting structure/function of new viral proteins