A patient with chemical corneal burn presented two months after the acute episode of chemical injury to his right eye (OD) and was diagnosed with severe limbal stem cell deficiency and with vascularized corneal opacity OD. Limbal cell transplantation and penetrating keratoplasty (PKP) was performed. The autologous and allograft limbal tissue included peripheral cornea, limbus and conjunctiva ob...

AIMS To assess the potential of electrospun poly(lactide-co-glycolide) membranes to provide a biodegradable cell carrier system for limbal epithelial cells. MATERIAL & METHODS 50:50 poly(lactide-co-glycolide) scaffolds were spun, sterilized and seeded with primary rabbit limbal epithelial cells. Cells were cultured on the scaffolds for 2 weeks and then examined by confocal microscopy, cryosec...

AIM To investigate human oral mucosal fibroblasts (HOMF) and human limbal fibroblasts (HLF) as alternatives to murine 3T3 feeder fibroblasts currently used to support epithelial cell expansion for the treatment of limbal epithelial stem cell deficiency. METHODS HLF and HOMF were compared with 3T3s for their ability to support the culture of human limbal epithelial cells and human oral mucosal...

Limbal relaxing incisions are one of the more commonly performed procedures with phacoemulsification to correct preexisting astigmatism during cataract surgery. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect and stability of limbal relaxing incisions in reducing preexisting astigmatism at the time of phacoemulsification. The study included 10 eyes in 12 patients who underwent limbal relaxing i...

Simple Limbal Epithelial Transplantation (SLET) has been proposed recently for care of total Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency (LSCD) secondary to alkali burn of cornea [1]. Reportedly it combines advantages of conjunctival limbal auto grafting [2] and cultivated limbal epithelial transplantation [3] by being a single-stage, affordable procedure utilizing minimal donor tissue. Besides, it is also rep...

Cultured limbal tissue transplants have become widely used over the last decade as a treatment for limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD). While the number of patients afflicted with LSCD in Australia and New Zealand is considered to be relatively low, the impact of this disease on quality of life is so severe that the potential efficacy of cultured transplants has necessitated investigation. We pr...

PURPOSE To determine the relative expression of cell cycle-association proteins in human corneal and limbal epithelium and corneal endothelium in situ, to correlate staining patterns of cell cycle-associated proteins with known proliferative status of corneal and limbal epithelial cells, and to determine the relative proliferative status of corneal endothelial cells in situ by comparing their s...

Periostin is a non-structural matricellular protein. Little is known about periostin in human limbal stem cells (LSCs). This study was to explore the unique expression pattern and functional role of periostin in maintaining the properties of human LSCs. Fresh donor corneal tissues were used to make cryosections for evaluation of periostin expression on ex vivo tissues. Primary human limbal epit...

OBJECTIVE To examine whether amniotic membrane transplantation (AMT), in preparing the perilimbal stroma, enhances the success of allograft limbal transplantation (ALT). METHODS Thirty-one eyes of 26 consecutive patients had cytologically proven limbal deficiency resulting from chemical burns (14 eyes); Stevens-Johnson syndrome, toxic epidermal necrolysis, or pseudopemphigoid (5 eyes); contac...

We describe a novel surgical technique for pterygium removal taking advantage of the properties of amniotic membrane and limbal epithelial stem cells. A total of 10 eyes underwent pterygium excision with amniotic membrane coverage of the bare sclera and placement of pieces of limbal epithelium in a linear fashion in the affected limbal area covered by a second amniotic membrane using fibrin glu...