Original articleAssessment of Eye Bank–Prepared Posterior Lamellar Corneal Tissue for Endothelial Keratoplasty
Section snippets
Corneas and Grouping Protocol
Seventeen human corneal–scleral discs (Table 1) were obtained by Tissue Banks International (TBI; Baltimore, MD) after informed consent for research use was obtained from the deceased’s families. These tissues were processed entirely at the local TBI eye bank facility by TBI personnel and were not used for patient keratoplasty.
All tissues were ≤16 days postmortem. The corneas were assigned to 1 of 2 groups (Fig 1). Corneas in group 1 were used for pachymetry, which was performed at the time of
Baseline Characteristics of Donor Corneas
All of the donor corneas used for pachymetry measurements in this study were ≤7 days postmortem (group 1; Table 1), with a mean storage time of 6 days. The mean ± standard deviation (SD) age of donors in group 1 was 54±10 years. The mean ± SD precut thickness of these corneas was 599±52 μm (Table 3).
Reliability of Microkeratome Cutting Depth
In vivo microkeratome cutting depths may vary ±26 μm in one study.8Table 3 shows an average cutting depth of 271±83 μm in this study (29 μm under the target setting), reflecting a fairly consistent
Discussion
With manual dissection for traditional DSEK, the surgeon attempts to achieve a posterior lamellar thickness close to 150 μm. This is often difficult to achieve and can result in inadvertent perforation of the donor tissue’s endothelium, necessitating prompt replacement with alternative donor tissue. This event is not uncommon, particularly in the hands of inexperienced surgeons, and has often led to having a second cornea on hand in the event of this complication. The safety of having
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2014, Canadian Journal of OphthalmologyCitation Excerpt :The 3 deepest cuts were 446, 459, and 540 μm, and were associated with higher predissection corneal thickness of 565, 549, and 663 μm, respectively. The comparatively low-volume Canadian Eye Bank studied demonstrated tissue quality metrics on par with those reported in larger centres elsewhere.14,15 As in other studies, there were corneas where a physiologically impossible gain in ECD was observed, as well as large losses in ECD.
Cost analysis of eye bank versus surgeon prepared endothelial grafts
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Manuscript no. 2006-1074.