Singapore General Hospital's experience in corneal grafting

This is a retrospective study of 56 corneal grafts that was done in the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) between 1980 and 1989. These cases were analysed and it was found that there was a male predominance of about 2:1. There was a rather even spread among the various age groups except for a slightly higher incidence in the 20-29 year age group. There was a drastic drop in the number of grafts done after the year 1987 and this was attributed to the reluctance to accept donor corneas from Sri Lanka as there was the danger of the AIDS transmission through the donor material. The most number of grafts were done for patients with infection as a cause for corneal opacities, followed closely by keratoconus. There was a high incidence of graft rejection as almost 20 out of the 56 developed rejection. However, the visual results proved to be good with 27 obtaining at least 6/12 vision post operatively. This article outlines the need for more stringent pre-operative evaluation of both the donor material as well as the host patient in order to reduce the incidence of graft rejection and, hence, increase the overall success rate.