This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

DMEK shows good visual results at 6 months

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

BERLIN — Descemet's membrane endothelial keratoplasty is showing a high rate of success, according to a surgeon speaking here.

"In our series of 133 patients, we had an 86% success rate. Fourteen percent of the cases were unsuccessful due to graft detachment or failure to clear up, but underwent secondary ... surgery with positive outcomes," Gerrit Melles, MD, said at the World Ophthalmology Congress.

Successful eyes had good visual acuity results, with 96% of the patients achieving 20/40 or better and 74% achieving 20/25 or better at 6 months.

"Almost half of the patients reached BCVA 20/25 or better within 1 month," Dr. Melles said.

These results show the superior potential of DMEK compared with Descemet's stripping endothelial keratoplasty. "The thinner, the better," he said. "By adding stromal tissue, you degrade the image."

In his busy practice, Dr. Melles has had several patients who asked him to remove a previous DSEK graft and have DMEK.

"Patients talk to each other, and DMEK patients are obviously reporting better outcomes," he said.

Follow OSNSuperSite.com on Twitter.