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Advantages And Disadvantages Of Keratoplasty

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4.1 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR POST-KERATOPLASTY REFRACTIVE SURGERY
The corneal graft-host junction typically heals by 1 year after transplantation and corneal surface stability is achieved from 3 to 4 months after complete suture removal. However, this period can significantly vary due to patient's age, general health status (diabetes mellitus and collagen vascular disorders) and use of topical and systemic immunosuppressive medications. Given that, any surgical intervention for post-PKP astigmatism should be postponed at least from 3 to 4 months after complete suture removal (Preschel at el., 2000).
Prior to any refractive surgical intervention, a comprehensive ophthalmic history taking and examination including uncorrected (UCVA) and best spectacle-corrected visual …show more content…

The corneal profile refers to the contour of a cross section of the cornea which may be prolate, oblate or mixed. Prolate cornea appears to be steeper centrally than at the periphery while oblate cornea appears flatter centrally than peripherally. A mixed profile shows features of both oblate and prolate shapes at different corneal areas.
The type of astigmatism seen in corneal topography may be oval, regular astigmatic or irregular astigmatic. Other characteristic patterns include bow-tie appearance (symmetric/asymmetric), triple pattern, horse-shoe pattern and steep/flat pattern (Karabatsas et al., 1999).
Karabatsas et al studied 360 topography maps of 85 post-PKP cases. The mapping was done at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months post-operatively. It was found that at 12 months post-PKP, the prevalence of irregular astigmatism is about double that of regular astigmatism, with a trend for increase of the irregular patterns over time. Regular astigmatic patterns were associated with significantly higher astigmatism measurements but lower surface asymmetry index (Karabatsas et al.,

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