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Updated: Oct 2, 2026
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Published on: July 6, 2015
Two cases of a penetrating keratoplasty with tissue from a donor who had undergone LASIK surgery
Adi Michaeli-Cohen1, Anelise Caron Lambert, Fides Coloma
1Department of Ophthalmology, Toronto Western Hospital, Ontario, Canada. drcohen58@hotmail.com
Purpose:
To report two cases of penetrating keratoplasty using tissue from a donor who had undergone laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) surgery before its transplantation.
Participants:
Two patients who had penetrating keratoplasties and received donor corneas from eyes that had previous LASIK.
Intervention:
The two patients underwent corneal transplantation by two different surgeons who were unaware that the donor eyes had previous LASIK treatment.
Results:
Penetrating keratoplasty was completed without complication in both cases, although a separation of the corneal lamellae was noted during surgery in one of the cases. The two patients are doing well at 5.5 months postsurgery.
Conclusion:
With the increasing popularity of laser refractive surgery, eye banks should increase their awareness and refine screening techniques to rule out refractive surgery in the donor corneas. The long-term follow-up of those patients will reveal if surgical success was compromised by prior refractive surgery.
