Donor Endothelial Cell Count Does Not Correlate With Descemet Stripping Automated Endothelial Keratoplasty Transplant Survival After 2 Years of Follow-up.

Purpose: To analyze the influence of low endothelial cell density (ECD) of donor cornea tissue, donor age, and sex on the transplant survival rate after Descemet stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK).

Methods: Graft ECD, age, and sex of donors used for DSAEK (n = 1789) during 7 years (2007-2014) in 4 Scandinavian hospitals were assessed for potential association with transplant survival at 2 years of follow-up using a Cox regression model correcting for confounding factors. The data were obtained from The Swedish Cornea Transplant Registry.

Results: Transplant failure occurred in 196 patients, with 69 early failures during the first 3 postoperative months, and 127 late secondary failures. Twenty-five of the late secondary failures were due to rejection. Reversible rejections occurred in 67 patients. There was no significant impact of donor age [hazard ratio (HR) 1.0, 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.99-1.02, P = 0.32] or endothelial cell count (HR 1.00, 95% CI, 0.99-1.01, P = 0.3) on the survival rate of DSAEK transplants at 2 years of follow-up. The use of donor grafts with low ECD (<2300 cells/mm) did not influence the survival rate (HR 1.3, 95% CI, 0.76-2.35, P = 0.31). Male donor sex was associated with lower 2-year graft survival (HR 1.5, 95% CI, 1.04-2.28, P = 0.03), but not with rejection events (P = 0.26).

Conclusions: Based on data from The Swedish Cornea Transplant Registry, low donor ECD was not detrimental to graft survival, whereas donor sex seemed to influence the outcome at the end of the 2-year follow-up.