A healthy cornea is important for clear vision. The cornea is located on the outside surface of your eye and is responsible for not only protecting the eye from foreign debris but also for helping focus light that enters the eye.
Because the cornea is so “front and center” on the eye, it is also prone to becoming damaged, diseased or scarred due to:
- Injuries
- Allergies
- Inflammation (keratitis)
- Infection
- Dry eye
- Thinning, causing a cone-shaped cornea (keratoconus)
- Cell deterioration (Fuchs’ dystrophy)
- Protein deposits (lattice dystrophy)
- Shingles
- Ocular herpes
- Pinkish growth (pterygium)
- Inward-facing eyelashes causing scarring (trichiasis)
- And a variety of other conditions
When this damage is severe enough, your vision will become greatly impacted. If glasses or contact lenses cannot restore your vision for daily tasks, your doctor may recommend a corneal transplant. This process works by removing all or part of the cornea and replacing it with healthy donor tissue from an eye bank.
At Arizona Eye Specialists our corneal experts perform corneal transplants. Depending on the severity of your problem, we may recommend a:
- Full-thickness corneal transplant (penetrating keratoplasty or PK) to replace the entire cornea. Temporary sutures are necessary to keep the new cornea in place as the eye heals.
- Partial thickness corneal transplant (Descement’s Stripping Automated Endothelial Keratoplasty or DSAEK) which replaces the damaged section of the back inner layer of the cornea. No sutures are required and most patients achieve a faster visual recovery.
If you are considering having a corneal transplant, make sure you are fully aware of the risks of surgery such as – rejection of the new tissue, infection, and corneal swelling. Trusting your eyes to an experienced ophthalmologist, such as the surgeons at Arizona Eye Specialists, will help reduce some of those risks. Contact Arizona Eye Specialists to schedule an appointment with one of our highly skilled corneal physicians.