Purpose:
To determine whether sole full-thickness corneal sutures are a feasible treatment for acute corneal hydrops, and if so, report the anatomic and visual results of this technique.
Methods:
A retrospective case series was carried out in 17 patients, all of whom received sole full-thickness sutures as a treatment for corneal hydrops.
Results:
The included patients reported symptom commencement a median of 15 days before the surgical intervention. The patients' median preoperative corneal pachymetry was 1235 μm, whereas 1 month after the surgery, the median corneal thickness was 830 μm, and after 3 months, it was 502 μm (P < 0001). Preoperative best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was 1.40 LogMAR and a final postsurgical BCVA of 1.00 LogMAR after 3 months of the follow-up (P < 0001). Deep neovascularization was present in 3 patients (17.6%); none of the patients developed cataract formations or pupillary blocks.
Conclusions:
Given the improvement of the corneal pachymetry and the BCVA, sole full-thickness sutures seem to be a feasible surgical option to treat severe acute corneal hydrops.
Acute corneal hydrops usually resolves alone or with medical therapy along the first 4–6 weeks. However, depending on the severity of the corneal edema or the size of the Descemet break, self-healing might be difficult. Years ago, those patients had no more options than corneal transplantation, but surgical alternatives are on the rise in this century. These surgeries are becoming more popular with a variety of techniques relegating penetrating keratoplasty to a residual role. These techniques aim to accelerate corneal healing, reduce the edema, improve visual acuity and prevent from severe complications that may appear if corneal hydrops is not treated rapidly. Feasibility and safety are the favorable aspects of these techniques since the complications rates described remain low. In this review, we emphasize the recently published studies that describe both the techniques and their results.
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