deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (dalk) has recently been introduced as an alternative procedure to penetrating keratoplasty (pk) for corneal pathologies not affecting the corneal endothelium. dalk does not rely on donor endothelium and requires less rigid criteria for donor corneal tissue quality. therefore, dalk makes it possible to use donor corneas deemed unsuitable for pk. furthermore, ...

Herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection is the most common cause of corneal blindness in the Western world. Despite effective anti-viral drugs such as acyclovir (ACV), disease recurrence due to the virus establishing latency within the corneal nerves and possibly cells makes treatment very challenging. Furthermore, although effective, current systemic and topical preparations of anti-viral drugs d...

The aim of the present study was to explore the survival of pig-rhesus corneal xenografts following donor bone marrow transplantation (BMT). Wuzhishan pigs were used as donors and rhesus monkeys as recipients for corneal xenotransplantation. Twelve rhesus monkeys were divided into two groups. Group 1 received intravenous injection of cyclophospham...

Almost 300 million people are visually impaired worldwide due to various eye diseases such as cataracts, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and corneal diseases. Notably, ten million people are blind because of severe ocular surface diseases and the majority of cases occur in developing countries. Blinding ocular surface diseases have, however, become treatable by...

OBJECTIVE To determine the effect of topical soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor type I (sTNFR-I) on survival of murine orthotopic corneal transplants and on ocular chemokine gene expression after corneal transplantation. METHODS BALB/c mice (N = 50) were used as recipients of multiple minor H-disparate corneal transplants from B10.D2 donors. After orthotopic corneal transplantation, mice ...

The corneal epithelium is maintained by a small pool of tissue stem cells located at the limbus. Through certain injuries or diseases this pool of stem cells may get depleted. This leads to visual impairment. Standard treatment options include autologous or allogeneic limbal stem cell (LSC) transplantation, however graft rejection and chronic inflammation lowers the success rate over long time....

Keratoplasty is considered the most successful organ transplantation procedure in the world. Reisinger was the first to use the term keratoplasty (Reisinger, 1824), when he suggested using an animal’s eye to provide donor corneal tissue for corneal transplantation in a human. In 1906, the first successful penetrating keratoplasty was performed by Edward Konrad Zirm on a patient suffering from b...

Canine amniotic membrane (AM) transplantation in conjunction with a third eyelid flap was used to promote healing of created deep corneal ulcers in 6 normal mongrel dogs. The healing was compared with the healing of created ulcers in the other eye of the same dog that were treated only with the third eyelid flap. A minimum of 60 days interval was allowed between the two treatment procedures in ...

PURPOSE To evaluate the clinical outcome of umbilical cord patch (UCP) transplantation for deep corneal ulcers with perforations and descemetoceles. METHODS In this retrospective, noncomparative, interventional case series, 11 eyes of 11 patients with corneal perforation or descemetocele were included. The thickness and microstructure of UCP were measured. All eyes were treated with UCP and a...