Long-term complications of corneal cross-linking in patients with progressive keratoconus

Abstract

Introduction: Keratoconus is a progressive disease, which in advanced stages leads to visual disability. Corneal crosslinking stops or slows its progression. Objective: Identify postoperative complications and predictor variables of corneal haze, 10 years after performing corneal crosslinking. Methods: Retrospective analytical study, carried out between June 2019 and December 2023, in 62 patients with progressive keratoconus, treated in one eye, with corneal crosslinking. The presence/absence of complications, type of complication were identified, the complication rate was calculated and the predictor variable of corneal haze was estimated. Results: Complications occurred in 41.9% (p= 0.001), versus 58.1% without complications. Haze was the most common complication (19 eyes; 30.6%), predicted by the preoperative keratoconus index; severe flattening occurred in only 2 eyes (3.2%); severe thinning and hyperopic refractive change, in 1 patient (1.6%). Conclusions: Treatment with corneal crosslinking induces complications in less than half of the cases, corneal haze is the most frequent, predicted by the preoperative keratoconus index.

Keywords

• complicaciones
• queratocono
• reticulación corneal.