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Impact of preoperative visual acuity on Descemet Membrane Endothelial Keratoplasty (DMEK) outcome

  • Cornea
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Abstract

Purpose

To evaluate whether and how preoperative visual acuity predicts visual acuity outcome after Descemet Membrane Endothelial Keratoplasty (DMEK).

Methods

One thousand eighty-four out of 1162 consecutive eyes having undergone DMEK alone or combined with cataract surgery (triple-DMEK) between July 2011 and February 2016 from the prospective Cologne DMEK database were included and analyzed retrospectively for correlations between pre- and postoperative visual acuity values at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after transplantation.

Results

There is a significant correlation between pre- and postoperative visual acuity (VA) after (triple)-DMEK after 6 and 12 months (p = 0.005 and p = 0.011 respectively; Pearson’s correlation coefficient 0.240 and 0.224). Preoperative VA below 20/100 leads to delayed and reduced final visual acuity results after 12 months (p < 0.001). However, defining an increase in VA > 0.1 logMAR as clinically relevant, we could not show any clinically relevant significant difference in the time needed to recover to final VA and in final VA. There is no significant difference for preoperative VA values above 20/40. The chance to reach postoperative VA above 20/25 is 40% for preoperative VA of 20/200, 50% for preoperative VA of 20/60 and > 60% for preoperative VA of 20/40.

Conclusion

DMEK results in very good final postoperative visual acuity results even in eyes with very poor preoperative vision caused by corneal pathology. However, preoperative visual acuity values below 20/100 result in significantly poorer visual recovery, which suggests that there is benefit in performing surgery early enough before this value is reached. Preoperative visual acuity seems to be an adjuvant tool for the prediction of the final visual outcome after DMEK.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Ms. Jennifer Austin for the language correction of the manuscript.

Funding

This study is funded by DFG FOR 2240 (www.for2240.de) and EU ARREST BLINDNESS (www.arrestblindness.eu).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ophthalmology, University of Cologne, Kerpener Str. 62, 50937, Cologne, Germany

    Silvia Schrittenlocher, B. Bachmann, A. M. Tiurbe, O. Tuac & C. Cursiefen

  2. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Geisenheim, Geisenheim, Germany

    K. Velten & D. Schmidt

Authors
  1. Silvia Schrittenlocher
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  2. B. Bachmann
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  3. A. M. Tiurbe
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  4. O. Tuac
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  7. C. Cursiefen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Silvia Schrittenlocher.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Schrittenlocher, S., Bachmann, B., Tiurbe, A.M. et al. Impact of preoperative visual acuity on Descemet Membrane Endothelial Keratoplasty (DMEK) outcome. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol 257, 321–329 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-018-4193-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-018-4193-4

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