Anterior Stromal Puncture with 26-Gauge Needle for Recurrent Corneal Erosion: A Report of Five Cases

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Recurrent corneal erosion (RCE) is a highly recurrent and intractable disease. None of the available conventional treatments has been shown to be specifically efficacious for RCE. Recently, many new methods were actively studied and used for RCE such as epithelial basement membranectomy, excimer laser therapeutic keratectomy, and anterior stromal puncture. We report 5 cases of RCE successfully cured using anterior stromal puncture with disposable 26-gauge needle. METHODS: A total of 5 eyes from 5 RCE patients, who had been initially treated with conventional therapy but suffered from recurrence, were treated using anterior stromal puncture with disposable 26-gauge needle from January 1999 to October 2001. We investigated the efficacy of this method over conventional therapy by retrospective review of their medical records. RESULTS: The average trial number per patient was 1.2 (once or twice). There was no recurrence of RCE in 5 patients after the final trial. CONCLUSIONS: We have shown that anterior stromal puncture with disposable 26-gage needle is a better method over conventional methods to cure RCE caused by trauma and epithelial basement membrane dystrophy.