A study to assess the outcome of optical penetrating keratoplasty in a tertiary health care centre in north India

Blindness is one of the major problems in the world and more so in developing countries which opacity results in significant morbidity both in terms of loss of vision and socio-economic reasons corneal blindness is one of the major causes of visual deficiency. The solution to this problem is keratoplasty. The main purpose of this study is to analyze the indications, visual outcome, postoperative complications, and follow-up of corneal transplants done for optical purposes. 20 patients posted for optical penetrating keratoplasty in the Department of Ophthalmology, Faridkot were taken for the study. In our study, the final vision at the end of six months was more than 6/60 in 1 case, in the range of 4/60 to 6/60 in 7 cases. So, overall, 40% of patients achieved the vision of 4/60 or more. Vision is 3/60 or less in 12 (60%) cases. Complications like a recurrence of host disease occurred in 2 cases (10%), aphakic retinal detachment in one case, 6 (30%) cases developed postoperative glaucoma, 7 cases (35%) had epithelial defects, allograft rejection in 3 cases (15%), endophthalmitis in one case, graft infection in 2 (10%) cases. The results of this study show that penetrating keratoplasty helps patients regain vision which makes them able to move independently.