Cornea of an elderly female soft contact lens wearer afflicted by acanthamoeba keratitis

Evacuated cyst walls embedded in corneal stroma

Acathamoeba keratitis classically afflicts soft contact lens wearers who use contaminated homemade saline solutions or wear their contact lenses while swimming or in hot tubs. Corneal infection is usually very painful. In some medically intransigent cases, as exemplified in this case, corneal transplantation may be necessary. The chitinous wall of the organism is oval, while the cytoplasm typically retracts from the cyst wall in tissue sections. The cyst contains a round nucleus with a distinct nucleolus.

Acanthamoeba nucleus with distinct nucleolus