Eye Banking: One Cornea for Multiple Recipients

Abstract

Purpose: Corneal transplantation is the most frequently performed transplant procedure. In much of the world, the demand for donor tissue heavily outstrips supply. With developments within lamellar corneal graft surgery, the use of split corneal donor tissue to increase donor tissue supply seems a pragmatic solution to reduce the supply and demand mismatch. This is especially important with tissue supply expected to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: A literature review of techniques was performed, enabling multiple transplants to be derived from a single donor and simulation of a model to quantify the number of corneas potentially saved.

Results: Studies on splitting corneal donor tissue have demonstrated that up to 5 recipients may benefit from 1 donor scleral button. The impact of splitting donor tissue may provide a saving of up to 25.3% of donor graft tissue.

Conclusions: Splitting and preparing the donor tissue within an eye bank will improve tissue validation and donor tissue availability and may increase surgeon efficiency.