Clinical Evaluation of 157 Corneal Grafted Eyes

ABSTRACT

The clinical and statistical evaluations of the 157 corneal grafted eyes which were operated at the Dept. of Ophthalmology, St. Mary's Hospital, Catholic Medical College from April, 1967 to May, 1978 were done. The fonow-up period ranged from 4 months to 11 years. The results were as follows: 1. Age incidence of corneal grafted patients was highest in the 20's and lowest in the age group under 10 years and over 50 years of age. 2. Male and female ratio was approximately 3:1. 3. The four major causes requiring corneal graft, the highest percentage wag occupied by trauma (38 eyes, 24.2%) followed by Herpes simplex keratitis(30 eyes, 19.1%), measles (24 eyes, 15.3%) and phlyctenular keratitis(15 eyes, 9.6%). At the time of keratoplasty, the cnndition of the majority of the cornea were either Leucoma cornea (77 eyes, 49.0%) or Leucoma cnrnea adherens (38 eyes, 24.2%). 4. One hundred and fourty-two eyes(90.4%) had penetrating keratoplasty operations and 15 eyeg(9.6%) lamellar grafts. 5. Eighty five point four percentage of ths total grafted eyes maintained clarity of grafted cornea. 6. The causes of the 23 opaque grafts were graft rejection (l4 eyes, 60.9 %), recurrence of the Herpes simplex keratitis(2 eyes, 8.7%), neovascularization of the donor cornea(2 eyes, 8.7%) and others(5 eyes, 21.7%). 7. Five eyes had penetrating keratoplasty and cataract operation simultaneously. Four eyes retained clarity of the cornea with improvement of visual acuity: however, one eye was unsuccessful due to vitreous body touching the corneal endothelium. 8. Post-operative visual improvement was seen in 118 eyes (75.2%). Useful vision (F.C. -0.4) was obtained in 84 eyes (71.8%) among 118 eyes. Twenty-four eyes improved to vigual acuity of greater than 0.4 while 9 eyes improved to less than F.C. (finger count).