Pediatric Keratoplasty: The Success of a Tailor-Made Surgical Management

Abstract

A Romanian 5-month-old girl was referred to our hospital after being diagnosed with congenital corneal opacities. She was sent in order to undergo penetrating keratoplasty (PKP) surgery on her left eye. The patient presented a natural tendency to esotropia. We took into account two different surgical techniques: PKP and lamellar keratoplasty. The latter was technically impossible to carry out because of the full-thickness corneal opacity. We conducted several tests to accurately obtain the patient’s preoperative parameters and specifically decide the details of the surgical technique to be applied. For each step of the surgical procedure we carefully compared the individual results in the literature in order to ensure a stable and lasting result. In addition to this, we used an innovative suture technique: nylon thread, interrupted suture, alternating 11-0/10-0 threads. Six months after the operation, the functional result obtained was 4–5/10, with recovery of the fixation. Pediatric PKP, therefore, cannot follow a surgical standard, but requires careful case-by-case evaluation from the pre- to the postoperative phase, with the aim of maximizing stable visual acuity.

Keywords

• penetrating keratoplasty
• pediatrics
• congenital opacities
• adult graft