Study shows donor cornea cells can survive 30 years on recipient

PARIS — Donor-derived corneal stromal cells can survive on a recipient’s eye for up to 30 years after penetrating keratoplasty, according to a surgeon speaking here.

Ulf Stenevi, MD, prospectively analyzed the donor-derived corneal epithelial and stromal cells of 75 sex-mismatched PKP patients — patients who were a different sex than the donor of the cornea. He presented the results here at the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons meeting.

Using fluorescent in situ hybridization, X and Y chromosomes in samples of the patients’ corneal tissues were stained in order to identify those cells carrying the sex chromosomes of the person of origin, Dr. Stenevi said.

Donor derived corneal epithelial cells were shown to remain alive for at least 2 years after transplantation, he said. Stromal cells, which were what Dr. Stenevi was mainly interested in evaluating, were shown to remain in the graft 30 years after being transplanted, he said.

“It is obvious that cells from the graft remain alive for a long time after surgery in these patients, which probably should have us look at the way we treat our patients … because the epithelial load is there 30 years post-surgery,” he said.

“It also imposes the question of what happens to these cells. Are they multiplying? Or are they just staying there? What happens when the endothelium is gone?” he said. “That is something we have to look at.”

Regardless of the reason for the surgery, “there are still cells surviving in the graft from the donor,” he said.