IT is now well-established that endothelial viability of the donor cornea is essential for successful penetrating keratoplasty (Kaufman, Capella, and Robbins, 1966; Stocker, Eiring, Georgiade, and Georgiade, 1959). Unfortunately all the current methods of assessment render the donor eye unsuitable for a subsequent penetrating graft. These include: (1) Morphological studies of the endothelium of...

Endothelial cell dysfunction as in Fuchs dystrophy or pseudophakic bullous keratopathy, and the limited regenerative capacity of human corneal endothelial cells (HCECs), drive the need for corneal transplant. In response to limited donor corneal availability, significant effort has been directed towards cell therapy as an alternative to surgery. Stimulation of endogenous progenitors, or transpl...

Corneal endothelial cells play a critical role in maintaining corneal transparency and dysfunction of these cells caused by aging, diseases (such as Fuch's dystrophy), injury or surgical trauma, which can lead to corneal edema and blindness. Due to their limited proliferative capacity in vivo, the only treatment method is via transplantation of a cadaver donor cornea. However, there is a severe...

PURPOSE Severe destruction of the corneal limbus causes conjunctival invasion and subsequent visual loss. Limbal allograft transplantation (LAT) was recently proposed for the treatment of these disorders. However, whether the method functions as a stem cell transplantation of the corneal epithelium remains unclear. This study provided evidence that donor-derived corneal epithelial cells survive...

PURPOSE The aim of the study was to evaluate the various donor and recipient factors associated with short-term prevalence of surface epithelial keratopathy after optical penetrating keratoplasty (OPK). METHODS Preoperative and postoperative data of 91 eyes of 91 patients were reviewed retrospectively who had undergone OPK from March 2013 to February 2016. Donor and recipient data were analyz...

In our retrospective study we evaluated the efficacy of an improved amniotic membrane (AM) roll-in filling technique (AMR) combined with multilayer amniotic membrane cover to treat corneal perforation and included 46 cornea perforations ≤ 3 mm in diameter treated with AMR and 20% C3F8 mixed gas filling of the anterior chamber. Anterior chamber depth, aqueous leakage, bubble maintenance time, an...

PURPOSE To evaluate the functional outcome of tissue-engineered corneal endothelium reconstructed on a devitalized carrier and transplanted in the living feline model. METHODS Eighteen healthy adult cats underwent full-thickness corneal transplantation. In 11 animals, the donor cornea was reconstructed from cultured allogeneic feline corneal endothelial cells seeded on the denuded Descemet's ...

We present the case of successful repair of an exposed glaucoma drainage tube by cornea graft fixation with tissue adhesive, and without subsequent coverage by adjacent conjunctiva or donor tissues. Patient with history of keratoglobus with thin cornea and sclera, and phthisical contralateral eye, underwent three unsuccessful corneal grafts followed by Boston type 1 keratoprosthesis in the righ...

PURPOSE To develop a novel method for constructing a sheet of human corneal endothelial cells (HCECs) and examine the properties of the HCEC sheet. METHODS HCECs were cultured on a cell culture insert for a week; ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid was applied from the bottom of the cell culture insert to attenuate the attachment of HCECs. The sheet of HCECs was constructed by bluntly detaching ...

PURPOSE To determine if there is a difference in antibiotic sensitivity to coagulase-negative Staphylococcus (CNS) cultured from the host versus the donor cornea at the time of corneal transplantation. Then to apply this knowledge to preoperative preparation of patients undergoing eye surgery. METHOD A total of 923 donor corneas stored in Optisol and 895 host corneas with no preoperative anti...