Original articleLearning Curve in Descemet's Membrane Endothelial Keratoplasty: First Series of 135 Consecutive Cases
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
In a first group of 135 consecutive eyes of 118 patients, with Fuchs' endothelial dystrophy, 49 male and 69 female, ranging from 33 to 93 years in age (average, 67.2±11.9), a DMEK procedure11, 12, 13, 14 was performed. Twenty-one eyes were phakic; all other eyes pseudophakic. All patients signed an institutional review board-approved clinical research informed consent. All DMEK surgeries were (partially) performed by a single surgeon (G.M.; 115 eyes) or a corneal fellow (I.D., K.M., or K.D.; 20
Results
To evaluate the learning curve in DMEK surgery, a total of 135 consecutive eyes that enrolled in our study were retrospectively divided in 3 groups of 45 patients (groups I–III; Table 1) for analysis and comparison. The BCVA and ECD were considered as the clinically most significant outcome parameters. The feasibility of the technique in time may be reflected by the intra- and postoperative complications, as well as by the number of secondary interventions required to obtain a clinically
Discussion
In the current study, the learning curve in DMEK was evaluated in a first series of 135 patients.
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Cited by (0)
Manuscript no. 2010-431.
Financial Disclosure(s): The authors have made the following disclosures:
Gerrit Melles – Consultant – D.O.R.C./Dutch Ophthalmic USA.