**1. Introduction**

Endophthalmitis is an ocular inflammation into the posterior segment of the eye usually involving vitreous cavity along with the retinal and uveal components of the eye [1] due to infectious agent, usually bacterial or fungal or non-infectious causes. Normally, the blood– ocular barrier prevents invasion from infective organisms, but if this is breached (directly through trauma or indirectly due to a change in its permeability secondary to inflammation), infection can occur. Endophthalmitis often results in partial or complete loss of vision despite aggressive therapeutic and surgical intervention and hence it is considered as a medical emergency [2, 3]. When inflammation spreads throughout the globe involving all the layers including the Tenon's capsule with or without involvement of the peri-ocular tissues, the

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

condition is known as panophthalmitis. Hence, in endophthalmitis there is involvement of all ocular tissues except the sclera while in panophthalmitis there is involvement of all ocular tissues including the sclera. Panophthalmitis is a devastating fulminant condition associated with complete loss of vision and with very poor prognosis [3].


**Table 1.** Difference between infectious and non-infectious endophthalmitis [4]
