Indications for Corneal Transplantation at a Tertiary Referral Center in Tehran

Ophthalmic research center, labbafinejad medical center, shahid beheshti university of medical sciences, tehran, iranpurpose: to report the indications and techniques of corneal transplantation at atertiary referral center in tehran over a 3-year period.methods: records of patients who had undergone any kind of corneal transplantationat labbafinejad medical center, tehran, iran from march 2004 to march 2007 were reviewed to determine the indications and types of corneal transplantation.results: during this period, 776 eyes of 756 patients (including 504 male subjects)with mean age of 41.3±21.3 years underwent corneal transplantation. the mostcommon indication was keratoconus (n=317, 40.8%) followed by bullous keratopathy(n=90, 11.6%), non-herpetic corneal scars (n=62, 8.0%), infectious corneal ulcers(n=61, 7.9%), previously failed grafts (n=61, 7.9%), endothelial and stromalcorneal dystrophies (n=28, 3.6%), and trachoma keratopathy (n=26, 3.3%). otherindications including terrien’s marginal degeneration, post-lasik keratectasia,trauma, chemical burns, and peripheral ulcerative keratitis constituted the restof cases. techniques of corneal transplantation included penetrating keratoplasty(n=607, 78.2%), deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (n=108, 13.9%), conventionallamellar keratoplasty (n=44, 5.7%), automated lamellar therapeutic keratoplasty(n=8, 1.0%), and descemet stripping endothelial keratoplasty (n=6, 0.8%) in descendingorder. the remaining cases were endothelial keratoplasty and sclerokeratoplasty.conclusion: in this study, keratoconus was the most common indication for penetratingkeratoplasty which was the most prevalent technique of corneal transplantation.however, deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty is emerging as a growing alternativefor corneal pathologies not involving the endothelium.