Interface Intensity and Corneal Thickness Post-DSAEK.

(A) Corneal optical coherence tomography (OCT) images of an in vivo cat cornea pre-operatively and at early post-Descemet’s Stripping Automated Endothelial Keratoplasty (DSAEK) time-points. Note the easily discernible post-operative interface between the host and donor stromata appears brighter than the adjacent tissue. The host stroma also has increased thickness immediately post-operatively, which improves with time. (B) Corneal OCT image-derived backscatter intensity at the graft-host interface (yellow) in comparison to the adjacent host stroma (green) and donor stroma (blue) at early post-DSAEK time points. Note that the graft-host interface was consistently brighter than the adjacent host stroma and adjacent donor stroma. This result was statistically significant at the majority of time-points; between interface and adjacent host stroma at days 0 (p = 0.0078), 2/3 (p = 0.0053), 4/5 (p = 0.0019) and 6/7 (p = 0.0003), and between interface and adjacent donor stroma at days 0 (p = 0.0078), 2/3 (p = 0.0005), and 6/7 (p = 0.0155). This difference was no longer observed at the 8/9 day time point. * = significant difference between mean interface and mean host stromal intensity. † = significant difference between mean interface and mean donor stromal intensity. (C) OCT image-derived corneal thickness measurements across early post-DSAEK time-points. Note the brisk increase in total thickness from pre-operative levels (Pre-Op) to immediate post-operative (0) levels associated with the addition of the donor tissue, and the subsequent gradual decline in total thickness to day 6/7.