Banking of corneas

Abstract

Cornea is one of the oldest transplants of an anatomically and physiologically intact, viable tissue with the first successful full-thickness corneal allograft being attributed to Eduard Zirm in 1905 [1]. The patient was a farm labourer who had suffered bilateral lime burns, a condition that even today has a poor prognosis, which makes Zirm's success all the more remarkable. At that time, it was not only thought that tissue taken from a deceased donor would be harmful to the recipient but there was no satisfactory means of tissue preservation. The corneal graft was therefore taken from a child's eye that had just been enucleated following an injury and used immediately. By contrast, corneas are now stored routinely in eye banks for up to 4 weeks and distributed nationally and internationally for elective transplant surgery. Approximately 35,000 corneal transplants are carried out in the USA annually with perhaps a further 20,000 each year in Europe. While cornea is by far the most frequently transplanted ocular tissue, sclera and limbal tissue are also used therapeutically for, respectively, reconstructive surgery and the treatment of ocular surface disease. Cryopreserved amniotic membrane is also used to treat ocular surface disease [2-4].