The objective of the present research work has been to study the femtosecond laser-tissue interaction in order to define optimal conditions for performing keratoplasty of pathological corneas by femtosecond laser. This is the first thesis on the subject accomplished at the Laboratoire d’Optique Appliquée (Ecole Polytechnique, ENSTA, CNRS in Palaiseau) and it has been carried out in close collab...

PURPOSE To characterize the effects of Descemet's stripping, Rho-associated protein kinase inhibitor Y-27632, and donor age on endothelial migration in human corneas maintained in ex vivo culture. METHODS Twenty-eight cadaveric human corneas underwent ex vivo culture in either standard or Y-27632-supplemented culture medium for 14 days. The posterior surface of each cornea was manipulated to ...

PURPOSE Two major functions of thrombin observed in the cornea are activation of thrombin-sensitive, proteinase-activated receptors and cleavage of fibrinogen to fibrin. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the normal human cornea itself is competent to convert prothrombin to thrombin and synthesizes the mRNA for the proteins required. METHODS Human corneas were processed for im...

mated Bowman layer preparation with a 90to 100-mm-thick donor lamella of anterior stroma (instead of an 8to 12-mm-thick isolated Bowman layer graft). In our experience, the presence of donor stroma seems to degrade the optical quality of the transplanted cornea (as Descemet stripping endothelial keratoplasty/Descemet stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty grafts containing donor stroma ma...

PURPOSE Determine cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor 2A (p16(Ink4a)) and polycomb ring finger oncogene (Bmi1) expression in corneal endothelium samples from different age groups and test whether the expression of p16(INK4a) and Bmi1 are associated with endothelial cellular senescence in human cornea. METHODS Samples were selected from an eyebank of healthy human corneal endothelial cells (HCEC...

Jones and Rice (I968) have demonstrated experimentally that the endothelium of the donor corneal disc may be subjected to considerable mechanical trauma during penetrating keratoplasty by the more commonly used techniques. From these experimental observations they have developed a method in which the corneal disc is sutured over a cushion of air, thus obviating much of the endothelial trauma in...

Corneal antigen-presenting cells (APC), including dendritic cells (DC), were thought to reside exclusively in the peripheral cornea. Here, we present recent data from our group demonstrating that the central cornea is indeed endowed with a heterogeneous population of epithelial and stromal DC, which function as APC. Although the corneal periphery contains mature and immature resident bone marro...

When a triple procedure is planned, calculation of the intraocular lens becomes a problem. Postoperative corneal power bears no relation to preoperative power, and the axial length of the globe also changes. A prospective study of 24 keratoplasties revealed a close relationship between postoperative corneal power and donor corneal power. Changes in axial length were found to be too small to pro...

The pathology of 14 keratophakia procedures in nine nonhuman primates using various hydrogel lenses as donor lenticles is presented. The lenses were treated as if they were human donor corneas using currently practiced keratophakia procedures. This included microkeratome resection of the recipient cornea, staining of the lenses before cryolathing and, in most instances, lathing according to a m...

A variation of the femtosecond laser-assisted sutureless anterior lamellar keratoplasty technique using a femtosecond laser incision for surgical management of anterior corneal disease is described. Six patients with corneal scars were treated with the laser to create a horizontal lamellar bed interface in the cornea of the donor and recipient eyes, with a manual partial-thickness vertical trep...