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. 2021 Mar 1;40(3):342-347.
doi: 10.1097/ICO.0000000000002479.

Absence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 RNA in Human Corneal Tissues

Tarek Bayyoud  1 , Angelika Iftner  2 , Thomas Iftner  2 , Karl Ulrich Bartz-Schmidt  1 , Jens Martin Rohrbach  1 , Marius Ueffing  1   3 , Michael Schindler  2 , Sebastian Thaler  3
Affiliations

Absence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 RNA in Human Corneal Tissues

Tarek Bayyoud et al. Cornea. .

Abstract

Purpose: To examine corneal tissue for severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) positivity regarding implications for tissue procurement, processing, corneal transplantation, and ocular surgery on healthy patients. We performed quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction qRT-PCR-testing for SARS-CoV-2 RNA on corneal stroma and endothelium, bulbar conjunctiva, conjunctival fluid swabs, anterior chamber fluid, and corneal epithelium of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) postmortem donors.

Methods: Included in this study were 10 bulbi of 5 COVID-19 patients who died because of respiratory insufficiency. Informed consent and institutional review board approval was obtained before this study (241/2020BO2). SARS-CoV-2 was detected by using a pharyngeal swab and bronchoalveolar lavage. Tissue procurement and tissue preparation were performed with personal protective equipment (PPE) and the necessary protective measures. qRT-PCR-testing was performed for each of the abovementioned tissues and intraocular fluids.

Results: The qRT-PCRs yielded no viral RNA in the following ocular tissues and intraocular fluid: corneal stroma and endothelium, bulbar-limbal conjunctiva, conjunctival fluid swabs, anterior chamber fluid, and corneal epithelium.

Conclusions: In this study, no SARS-CoV-2-RNA was detected in conjunctiva, anterior chamber fluid, and corneal tissues (endothelium, stroma, and epithelium) of COVID-19 donors. This implicates that the risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection using corneal or conjunctival tissue is very low. However, further studies on a higher number of COVID-19 patients are necessary to confirm these results. This might be of high importance for donor tissue procurement, processing, and corneal transplantation.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

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