Follow-up of corneal transplantations at the Academic Medical Center of Amsterdam

In order to determine risk factors in corneal transplantations, corneal transplants performed at the Amsterdam Academic Medical Centre (AMC) were registered and the results evaluated by descriptive statistics and actuarial survival curves. The results showed that the diagnosis prior to transplantation, the number of previous transplants, and the vascularization were important prognostic factors for graft survival. The best results were obtained in the absence of vascularization, in primary transplants and in keratoconus, while vascularization in one or more quadrants and a diagnosis such as herpes resulted in poor graft survival. When, for instance, the negative influences of vascularization can be overcome, better results will be obtained.