AIM: To investigate the effect of the treatment of fungal keratitis with natamycin,recombinant bovine basic fibroblast growth factor eye gel and iodine cautery.

METHODS: Totally 160 fungal keratitis patients were randomly divided into test group one(60 cases), group two(67 cases)and control group(33 cases). Three groups were all treated by iodine cautery at first. Then the test group was treated with 50g/L natamycin eye drops and the test group two was given 50g/L natamycin and bFGF eye gel. The control group was only treated by 2g/L fluconazole eye drops. Then the therapeutic effect and duration of treatment between the three groups were analyzed.

RESULTS: The cure rates of three treatment groups were 71.7%, 76.1% and 51.5%, respectively. The effective rates were 90.0%, 91.0% and 78.8%, respectively. There were statistical differences between two test groups and the control group(P <0. 05). The average healing time of cured cases in the three groups were 20±15, 16±12, 30±13d, respectively. There were statistically significant differences between the two test groups and the control group.

CONCLUSION: The combined treatment of novel antifungal 50g/L natamycin, cell growth factor bFGF with traditional iodine cauterization is remarkable effective for fungal keratitis, especially early stage patients.