Six Years Outcome Of Femtosecond Laser Assisted Ultrathin Descemet Stripping Automated Endothelial Keratoplasty

To present our six-year results of Femtosecond laser assisted Ultrathin Descemet Stripping Automated Endothelial Keratoplasty for endothelial decompensation and compare them to published papers of same techniques and other techniques such as microkeratome-assisted UT-DSAEK.

The setting entailed the use of a retrospective single-center study of 100 patients who underwent Femtosecond laser assisted Ultrathin Descemet Stripping Automated Endothelial Keratoplasty.

A retrospective case series of 100 eyes with endothelial decompensation from various causes was studied after reviewing about 250 patients. The Femtosecond laser assisted technique was used to prepare donor tissue with a graft thickness of 100 μm. We evaluated the rate of graft loss, the best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), graft survival rates, OCT thickness, endothelial loss, immunologic rejection rates and any intra or postoperative complications. Any eye with ocular co-morbidity was excluded. 

Following the UT-DSAEK, follow-up data were collected from 30, 21, 19, 14, 10, and 6 eyes, respectively, at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 years. Demographics, causes of endothelial decompensation, and type of surgery were listed in Table 1. A BCVA of 20/30 or better was reported in 33.3%, 38.2%, 38%, 47.3%, 57.1%, 60%, and 66% of the eyes. Other BCVA lines were also illustrated in Table 2. The overall failure rate was about 4%, other intraoperative and early or late postoperative complications were analyzed in Table 3. 

As a result, our retrospective analysis of Femtosecond laser assisted UT-DSAEK shows good visual outcomes and an overall prognosis comparable to those of microkeratome-assisted UT-DSAEK .