Posters

Long donor cornea preservation time may shorten long-term graft survival

Poster Details

First Author: A.Omar EGYPT

Co Author(s):    H. Abdelmotaal   D. Tohamy                 

Abstract Details

Purpose:

To evaluate the effects of donor cornea long preservation time (≧13 days) and donor lens status on the endothelial cell density in patients undergoing penetrating keratoplasty.

Setting:

Department of Ophthalmology - Assiut University Hospitals - Assiut - Egypt

Methods:

We included patients who underwent uneventful penetrating keratoplasty and did not have any postoperative complications in the study. All patients had quantitative and qualitative endothelial cell analysis of the graft performed using non contact specular microscopy at their latest follow up visit. The following data were also recorded: Donor age, donor lens status, preservation to surgery interval as well as donor endothelial cell density.

Results:

Sixteen eyes of 16 patients were included in the study. The mean donor age was 63.12±2.13 years. The mean follow up period was 396.50±38.76 days. The mean preservation to surgery interval was 14.50±0.18 days. The mean endothelial cells loss was 55.57±4.43%. There were 8 grafts obtained from a phakic donor eye (group 1) and 8 grafts from a pseudophakic donor eye (group 2). Endothelial cell loss in groups 1 and 2 were 50.57±6.95% and 60.57±5.35% respectively (p = 0.27).

Conclusions:

Long donor cornea preservation time was associated with loss of nearly half of the endothelial cells in our study. Although not reaching statistical significance, pseudophakic donor lens status was associated with even more endothelial cell loss. Larger prospective randomized trials are needed to properly assess the effects of donor cornea preservation time and donor lens status on the long term graft survival.

Financial Disclosure:

None