Corneal transplantation with donor tissue kept in organ culture for 7 weeks.
OBJECTIVE
To study the fate of corneal grafts after extended organ culture (7 weeks).


METHODS
Six patients with symmetrical eye diseases were grafted bilaterally, in one eye with a cornea prepared by routine organ culture (mean 16 days), in the other eye with a donor cornea kept for 7 weeks (mean 49 days) in organ culture. The outcome was evaluated by biomicroscopy, graft thickness, endothelial cell density and visual performance after an observation time of at least 1 year.


RESULTS
Penetrating 7-8 mm grafting was uncomplicated in all cases. The endothelial densities were in both groups in the range 1000-2000 cells/mm2, and visual acuity 0.2-0.9 in cases with no other ocular pathology. Postoperative graft thickness and deswelling did not differ between 2- and 7-week cultured corneas. At final examination the thicknesses were 0.50 mm and 0.49 mm for 2- and 7-weeks cultured corneas.


CONCLUSIONS
Seven-week cultured corneas give clinical results comparable to those obtained using shorter culture periods. An extended culture period may be used to improve other qualities of the graft (compatibility, cell number, cell metabolism) and microbiological control.
Department of Ophthalmology, Arhus University Hospital, Denmark.
H
H
Ehlers
N
N
Ehlers
J O
JO
Hjortdal
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002452:Cell Count; D003319:Corneal Stroma / Q000166:cytology*; D016039:Corneal Transplantation; D004728:Endothelium, Corneal / Q000166:cytology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006085:Graft Survival; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009924:Organ Culture Techniques; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014019:Tissue Donors; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014792:Visual Acuity