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ORPHA:67043

Amoebic keratitis

high confidenceDisorder

Publications

602

77.5th percentile

Trials

6

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,060

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

4/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare corneal infection due to the protozoan Acanthamoeba that generally occurs in contact lens wearers and that is characterized by severe ocular pain, blepharospasm, photophobia, eye tearing, blurred vision and foreign body sensation. It can lead to impaired visual acuity if not treated promptly.

How rare: 1-9 / 100 000 — about one to nine people per hundred thousand.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (2)

Acanthamoeba caused keratitis · keratitis, Acanthamoeba

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

4/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    602 matched papers (328 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    15 HPO annotations (e.g. Abnormal anterior chamber morphology; Corneal stromal edema; Abnormal cornea morphology) Source

  4. Animal modelNot found

    No Alliance genotype “model of” associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  5. Orphan designationPresent

    2 FDA designations (2 FDA orphan-indication approvals) — e.g. polyhexanide Source

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    6 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (1 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

15

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0005629

  • Abnormal anterior chamber morphology
  • Corneal stromal edema
  • Abnormal cornea morphology
  • Decreased corneal sensation
  • Scleritis

Showing 5 of 15 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

None returned for this Mondo ID. Empty here is not proof that no model organism work exists under another name or gene.

Monarch fetch 2026-07-29

Therapies

Designations, candidates, and chemicals

FDA OOPD and EMA orphan designations, Open Targets clinical candidates, and CTD chemical associations via MyDisease.info. These never change the interventional-trial headline.

Orphan designation (FDA · EMA)

2

Designations · 2 with FDA orphan-indication approval

  • FDA polyhexanideAcanthamoeba Keratitis · 2017-11-06 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication
  • FDA miltefosineAcanthamoeba Keratitis · 2016-12-06 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication

Sources: FDA OOPD · EMA orphan designations

Open Targets candidates

20

Drugs / clinical candidates · MONDO_0005629

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

4 associated chemicals. Therapeutic evidence is listed first when present — not a treatment recommendation.

  • Chlorhexidine · therapeutic
  • dichlobanil · therapeutic
  • Pentamidine · therapeutic
  • polihexanide · therapeutic

MyDisease.info · MONDO:0005629

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

602

602 papers have been published on this condition. That is a real research literature — still far smaller than common diseases (breast cancer: over 700,000 papers). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

602 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 59 (publications denominator n=3967).

328 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 77.5th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 548 · MeSH hits: 59

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,060

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Lorenzo-Morales J15 papers · 2026

    University Institute of Tropical Diseases and Public Health, University of La Laguna, Avda Francisco Sanchez s/n, Campus de Anchieta, 38271 la Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Piñero JE12 papers · 2026

    University Institute of Tropical Diseases and Public Health, University of La Laguna, Avda Francisco Sanchez s/n, Campus de Anchieta, 38271 la Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Niyyati M8 papers · 2026

    Dept. of Medical Parasitology and Mycology, School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Reyes-Batlle M8 papers · 2026

    University Institute of Tropical Diseases and Public Health, University of La Laguna, Avda Francisco Sanchez S/n, Campus de Anchieta, 38271 La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Pérez-Pérez P7 papers · 2026

    Instituto Universitario de Enfermedades Tropicales y Salud Pública de Canarias (IUETSPC), Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), 38200 San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Sifaoui I7 papers · 2026

    Laboratoire Matériaux-Molécules et Applications, IPEST, B.P. 51, 2070 La Marsa, University of Carthage, Tunisia; University Institute of Tropical Diseases and Public Health, University of La Laguna, Avda Francisco Sanchez s/n, Campus de Anchieta, 38271 la Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Soleimani M6 papers · 2026

    Ocular Trauma and Emergency Department, Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Latifi A5 papers · 2025

    Dept. of Medical Parasitology and Mycology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Nissapatorn V5 papers · 2026

    Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; School of Allied Health Sciences, Walailak University, 80161 Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand. Electronic address: nissapat@gmail.com.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Omaña-Molina M5 papers · 2024

    School of Superior Studies Iztacala, UNAM, Los Reyes Iztacala, Tlalnepantla, Mexico State, Mexico. maritzaomanam@yahoo.com.mx.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

6

interventional trials for this specific condition

6 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 1 currently recruiting in our sample. 107 trials are registered for keratitis, the broader category — shown separately because they may or may not enrol this specific subtype.

Data as of 11 September 2026

6 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 90.1th percentile).

high confidence · 90.1th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

6 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Broader category: keratitis

107

Interventional trials for the parent category, exclusive of NCT IDs already counted above. Eligibility for this subtype is not guaranteed.

Worth raising with a clinician. How we count trials.

Recruiting under the broader category

Observational and natural-history studies

4 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

None of the matched observational studies is currently listed as recruiting.

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Other registries (secondary)

Broader net from EU CTIS, ISRCTN, and ICTRP when available — deduped against ClinicalTrials.gov IDs already counted above. Dual-model LLM relevance gates what we keep. These rows are not added to the interventional headline.

raw 10 · after dedupe 10 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 10 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-30

Source notes: ictrp: Error: ICTRP public search unavailable (WHO portal is SPA-only; SOAP needs partnership). Tried: https://apps.who.int/tri

No secondary-registry studies passed dual-model relevance for this condition name (after dedupe).

Uncertain / not reviewed (10)

Where to find support

Condition-specific patient organisations, when Orphanet lists them, are on the disease’s Orphanet page. We also link umbrella groups that support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families.

Orphanet entry for Amoebic keratitis — check Associations / patient organisations on that page.

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Amoebic keratitis" OR "Acanthamoeba caused keratitis" OR "keratitis, Acanthamoeba"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Acanthamoeba Keratitis

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Amoebic keratitis" OR "Acanthamoeba caused keratitis" OR "keratitis, Acanthamoeba" OR "Acanthamoeba Keratitis"

Interventional trials matched via: mesh (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 6 interventional · 4 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Parent-category trials query:

"keratitis"

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase, mesh; with hits: phrase, mesh

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-27T01:25:45.740Z