Endothelial Cell Count in Eye Bank Corneal Grafts: Impact of Death Cause and Donor Diseases

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of death causes and documented donor diseases on initial endothelial cell counts (after retrieval) and the development of corneal graft endothelia during organ culture. Methods: The retrospective statistic analyses was conducted on a data set of 10,185 human corneas prepared at the Hamburg Eye Bank. Results: Although we observed that death by gunshot trauma or alcoholism seems to be associated with marginally higher endothelium cell counts (independently from donor age), we could prove that only donor age is a relevant predictive parameter for the initial cell-density of the endothelium and its development in vitro. Conclusion: We conclude that an extension of prospective quality parameters for donor selection additional to donor age (such as individual causes of death) is not necessary.

Keywords:

• Corneal
• donor
• endothelium
• eye bank
• graft

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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. For this type of studym formal consent is not required. This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. We thank Mrs. Sibylle Altenähr for her excellent technical assistance regarding the data collection and administration and Mrs. Cornelia Roggenbuck for reviewing the manuscript as a native speaker.

DECLARATION OF INTEREST

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.