A study of race matching between donor and recipient in corneal transplantation

We investigated the influence of a racial match or mismatch between the corneal donor and recipient on the risk of endothelial rejection and subsequent graft failure in 998 corneal transplant recipients. Actuarial survival analysis showed no significant difference in the cumulative risk of endothelial rejection between the 676 race-matched and 322 race-mismatched recipients. Recipients who had preoperative factors that placed them at a higher risk of endothelial rejection (n = 208) also were not subject to a higher incidence of endothelial rejection if they received race-mismatched tissue. Graft failure after endothelial rejection was not found to differ among race-matched or -mismatched groups.