Association between graft storage time and donor age with endothelial cell density and graft adherence after Descemet Membrane Endothelial Keratoplasty (DMEK)

Session Details

Session Title: Cornea
Session Date/Time: Sunday 28/02/2016 | 08:30-11:00
Paper Time: 10:30
Venue: MC2 Room
First Author: : V.Liarakos GREECE
Co Author(s): :    M. Rodriguez   E. Groeneveld   L. Frank   J. van der Wees   S. Oellerich   G. Melles

Abstract Details

Purpose:

After having retrospectively evaluated the clinical outcome of 500 consecutive cases after Descemet membrane endothelial keratoplasty (DMEK), we extended the analysis in this study by assessing the effect of donor-related parameters on ECD decline and detachment rate in this group.

Setting:

Netherlands Institute for Innovative Ocular Surgery / Tertiary referral center

Methods:

Clinical outcome of our cohort of 500 consecutive DMEK eyes was matched to the donor and tissue information from our eye bank (Amnitrans EyeBank, Rotterdam). Multiple linear regression analysis and logistic regression analysis were used to evaluate how donor and tissue-related parameters affect ECD decrease and graft detachment at 6 months postoperative. For all statistical tests, a significance level equal to 0.05 was used, and only unique eyes were included, i.e. only one eye per patient (n=393) and of these only eyes with corneas from unique donors, leaving 334 eyes to be analyzed.

Results:

Logistic regression analysis showed that donor age might be associated with a 3% increase in the risk of a detachment (Odds Ratio = 0.97, 95% CI = [0.94, 1.00], P=0.049), i.e. higher donor age seems to be associated with lower chances of a detachment. In addition, linear regression analysis indicated that graft storage time in medium was associated with ECD decrease, i.e. the longer the storage time, the larger the decrease at 6 months after DMEK (P=0.012).

Conclusions:

We showed an association between graft storage time and ECD decline after DMEK and possibly between donor age and detachment. Thus, donor storage times may be kept as short as possible to improve short term ECDs. More research is needed to draw definite conclusions on the possible effect of donor age on the chance of a detachment after DMEK.

Financial Disclosure:

NONE