Cornea transplant quality may not differ in diabetic vs. non-diabetic donors

DENVER — There may be no difference between the cornea transplant quality of a diabetic donor vs. a non-diabetic donor, according to a presentation here.

In a poster presented at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology annual meeting, Yicheng Chen, MD, and colleagues compared endothelial cell density in 1,486 diabetic corneas and 2,488 non-diabetic corneas in a retrospective study.

“It’s generally accepted in the field that [a certain] endothelial cell density is the most commonly used proxy for predicting whether a cornea is a good cornea or not, so surgeons want cell counts above a certain number,” Chen told Ocular Surgery News.

Median endothelial cell density was statistically different, with 2,566 cells/mm² in the diabetic group and 2,608 cells/mm² in the non-diabetic group (P = .0006).

However, after the data were stratified by age, the difference in endothelial cell density between the groups was not statistically significant.

Chen attributed the change in significance to a larger number of young donors in the non-diabetic population.

“I think that was more due to the fact that if you look at the populations, they’re not normally distributed,” Chen said. “This skewed the non-diabetic population to have slightly healthier corneas, which when you separated them out by age, you take age as a confounding factor, and we didn’t see a difference.”

The study authors intend to additionally evaluate measurements such as pleomorphism and polymegathism.

“We would like to get more details on other measures of corneal quality as well as duration and degree of control of diabetes,” Chen said. - by Kristie L. Kahl

Disclosure: Chen reports no relevant financial disclosures.