title: Corneal thickness and endothelial damage after intraocular lens implantation.
abstract: The corneal thickness and the specular appearance of the corneal endothelium are reported in 100 patients with unilateral intraocular lens implantation. Post-operative time ranged from one to 42 months. An average central endothelial cell loss of uncomplicated cases of 46%, range 1 to 83%, with no correlation with time after the operation was found. A significantly higher cell loss was found in cases with technical complications, shallow anterior chamber or increased intraocular pressure post-operatively. No correlation was found between the corneal thickness and the endothelial cell loss. In two patients, however, with a cell density below 500 cells/mm2, a slight increase in corneal thickness was noted. Thirty patients presented a guttate endothelium. Irrespective of the occurrence of surgical complications the presence of a guttate endothelium was found to be a major determinant of the corneal thickness increase and could be ascribed as a cause of persistent corneal swelling in six of twelve patients with elevated corneal thickness. The progression of guttate changes occurred independently of the cell loss.
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001284:Atrophy; D002452:Cell Count; D003315:Cornea / Q000473:pathology*; D004727:Endothelium / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007910:Lenses, Intraocular / Q000009:adverse effects*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged