Free Papers

Outcomes of Descemet striping only for treating symptomatic fuchs endothelial dystrophy

Free Paper Details

First Author: E.Cohen CANADA

Co Author(s):    M. Mimouni   T. Trinh   N. Din   A. Slomovic   C. Chan        

Abstract Details

Purpose:

To report our experience with Descemet striping only for the treatment of Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy.

Setting:

Institutional, retrospective

Methods:

Thirteen eyes of 9 patients with symptomatic Fuchs endothelial dystrophy underwent a 4-mm central descemetorhexis without graft implantation between June 2017 to august 2020. All patients had central confluent guttae, undetectable central endothelial cell count by specular microscopy and healthy peripheral corneal endothelium. One eye had known glaucoma and one eye had ocular albinism with reduced visual potential. In 6 eyes, the procedure was combined with phacoemulsification and intraocular lens implantation. 8 eyes were treated with topical Ripasudil post operatively.

Results:

All eyes completed at least 3 months of post- operative follow-up (mean 11.6 ± 8.8 mo; 3–29 mo). All eyes achieved corneal clarity. Average time for corneal clearance 2.1 ± 1.5 mo. Ripasudil treatment did not influence the average time for corneal clearance 1.65 and 1.70 mo, with and without Ripasudil, respectively. Mean central corneal thickness pre and post operatively were 620 ± 100 and 582 ± 67 microns, respectively. Improvement in post operative best corrected visual acuity was achieved in all eyes, overall improvement from a mean of 0.32 to 0.186 (logMAR), p=0.02. All patients described visual symptomatic improvement.

Conclusions:

In Fuchs dystrophy with visual degradation due to central guttae, Descemet striping only is a viable procedure for visual rehabilitation. In our study topical Ripasudil did not found to be a contributing factor for faster corneal clearance.

Financial Disclosure:

-