AIM:To investigate the clinical treatment on patients with infectious keratitis by chestnut thorn.

METHODS: Retrospective analysis of 28 cases(28 eyes)with infectious keratitis due to chestnut thorn from June 2009 to October 2012. All patients had the clinical manifestations such as local infiltration, edema and ulcer formation. Chestnut thorn located deeply into corneal stroma, but did not penetrate into the anterior chamber. All patients underwent emergency surgery to remove chestnut thorn, of which 14 patients underwent corneal debridement joint multilayer amniotic membrane transplantation as the treatment group, and the other 14 patients refused amniotic membrane transplantation and had the chestnut thorn removed only as the control group. The corneal epithelial healing time, the degree of improvement of visual acuity and the incidence of complications were compared between the two groups after 3 months.

RESULTS: The corneal epithelial average healing time of the treatment group was significantly shortened compared with the control group(t=13.6, P<0.05), the visual acuity of the treatment group was improved significantly higher than that in the control group, and the incidence of complications of the treatment group was significantly decreased compared with the control group.

CONCLUSION: For the patients with corneal ulcer due to deep chestnut thorn, emergency surgery of corneal debridement joint multilayer amniotic membrane transplantation can promote the repair of the cornea and prevent the occurrence of complications after injury.