CORNEAL DONOR STUDY

Summary

Principal Investigator: roy W Beck
Affiliation: Jaeb Center for Health Research
Country: USA
Abstract: Several emerging problem areas in corneal transplantation and organ donation are likely to reduce the availability of corneal donor tissues in the United States. Such a reduction would significantly jeopardize the visual health of thousands of Americans who currently depend upon the eye banking system to provide safe and effective corneal tissue for sight restoration on a timely basis. The most easily implemented solution is to increase utilization of older donor-age tissue which is currently discarded or not even collected. Although a definitive study has not been performed, the weight of current evidence suggests that donor age is not an important predictor of graft failure when other criteria for suitability of the donor tissue (e.g., endothelial cell count) are met. Unfortunately, a strong bias exists against use of older donor tissue by many corneal surgeons and eye banks. Many surgeons and eye banks have arbitrarily set an upper age limit for the use of corneal tissue. Therefore, a considerable amount of potentially usable donor tissue is either not being harvested or, if harvested, goes unused because of this bias. To provide these much needed data, the Corneal Donor Study (CDS) was developed. The specific objective of the study is to determine whether the graft-failure rate over a 5-year follow-up period is equivalent with corneal tissue from donors older than 60 years old compared with that from younger donors. The study protocol is summarized below. Exposure Variable: Age of donor tissue. Sample Size: 1000 patients with approximately half receiving tissue from donors > 60 and half from donors <60 Outcome Measure: Graft failure or regarding from a 5-year follow-up period Recipient Eligibility Criteria: (1) Age range: 40-80 years, (2) Corneal disease. Presence of a condition associated with endothelial dysfunction, including pseudophakic corneal edema, Fuchs' dystrophy, posterior polymorphous dystrophy, irido-corneal-endothelial (ICE) syndrome, endothelial failure, interstitial keratitis (non-herpetic), or perforating corneal injury. Donor Eligibility Criteria: (1) Endothelial cell count> 2000 by specular microscopy according to the Eye Bank's usual routine, (2) Death to preservation time <15 hours if body or eyes refrigerated and <6 hours if not refrigerated, (3) Death to surgery time <7 days, (4) Age 10-79, (5) Phakic.
Funding Period: 1999-08-01 - 2008-07-31
more information: NIH RePORT

Top Publications

  1. ncbi Donor age and corneal endothelial cell loss 5 years after successful corneal transplantation. Specular microscopy ancillary study results
    Jonathan H Lass
    Cornea Donor Study Coordinating Center, Jaeb Center for Health Research, 15310 Amberly Drive, Suite 350, Tampa, FL 33647, USA
    Ophthalmology 115:627-632.e8. 2008
  2. ncbi An evaluation of image quality and accuracy of eye bank measurement of donor cornea endothelial cell density in the Specular Microscopy Ancillary Study
    Jonathan H Lass
    Cornea Donor Study Coordinating Center, Jaeb Center for Health Research, 15310 Amberly Drive, Suite 350, Tampa, FL 33647, USA
    Ophthalmology 112:431-40. 2005
  3. ncbi Donor risk factors for graft failure in the cornea donor study
    Joel Sugar
    University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
    Cornea 28:981-5. 2009
  4. ncbi Recipient risk factors for graft failure in the cornea donor study
    Alan Sugar
    W K Kellogg Eye Center, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
    Ophthalmology 116:1023-8. 2009
  5. ncbi The effect of ABO blood incompatibility on corneal transplant failure in conditions with low-risk of graft rejection
    Steven P Dunn
    Michigan Cornea Consultants, PC, Southfield, USA
    Am J Ophthalmol 147:432-438.e3. 2009
  6. ncbi The effect of donor age on corneal transplantation outcome results of the cornea donor study
    Robin L Gal
    Society of Northeastern New York Lions Eye Bank of Albany, Albany, New York, USA
    Ophthalmology 115:620-626.e6. 2008
  7. ncbi Specular microscopy ancillary study methods for donor endothelial cell density determination of Cornea Donor Study images
    Beth Ann Benetz
    Specular Microscopy Reading Center, Department of Ophthalmology, Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
    Curr Eye Res 31:319-27. 2006
  8. ncbi Clinical profile and early surgical complications in the Cornea Donor Study
    Mark J Mannis
    Cornea 25:164-70. 2006
  9. ncbi Baseline donor characteristics in the Cornea Donor Study
    Alan Sugar
    Cornea 24:389-96. 2005
  10. ncbi Endothelial cell density to predict endothelial graft failure after penetrating keratoplasty
    Jonathan H Lass
    Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Eye Institute, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
    Arch Ophthalmol 128:63-9. 2010

Scientific Experts

  • Robert Gross
  • Robin L Gal
  • Mark J Mannis
  • Jonathan H Lass
  • Edward J Holland
  • roy W Beck
  • Craig Kollman
  • Alan Sugar
  • Joel Sugar
  • Steven P Dunn
  • Mariya Dontchev
  • Katrina J Ruedy
  • Jean Paul Tanner
  • Robert L Schultze
  • Thomas D Lindquist
  • Marc A Goldberg
  • Michael W Belin
  • Keith H Baratz
  • Robert S Feder
  • Francis J Manning
  • Beth Ann Benetz
  • David G Heidemann
  • Peter J Berkowitz
  • Parveen K Nagra
  • R Wayne Bowman
  • Qais A Farjo
  • James P McCulley
  • Matthew S Oliva
  • Thomas S Boland
  • Mohamed Sameh H El-Agha
  • Sarkis H Soukiasian
  • Peter R Laibson
  • William J Reinhart
  • Elisabeth J Cohen
  • Richard A Eiferman
  • Terry E Burris
  • W Barry Lee
  • James W Caudill
  • H Kaz Soong
  • Roger F Meyer
  • David N Ugland
  • John E Sutphin
  • David M Meisler
  • Walter M Rotkis
  • Paul G Galentine
  • Stephen E Pascucci
  • Lance E Olson
  • Francis W Price
  • R Doyle Stulting
  • Christopher J Rapuano
  • Elmer Tu
  • William G Zeh
  • Mark A Pavilack
  • Kenneth C Chern
  • John W Cowden
  • Christopher R Croasdale
  • Jerry G Ford
  • Erik D Skoog
  • Mark S Gorovoy
  • Kerry D Solomon
  • John E Bokosky
  • David D Verdier
  • Gina C Jayawant
  • Ellen Heck
  • Ayad A Farjo
  • Steven I Rosenfeld
  • Barton L Halpern
  • Elliot M Perlman
  • Joseph M Thomas
  • Stephen M Hamilton
  • Richard L Lindstrom
  • Christopher Y Chow
  • Elizabeth A Davis
  • Kendall Dobbins
  • Walter J Stark
  • Kenneth R Kenyon
  • Christopher L Blanton
  • David R Hardten
  • David G O'Day
  • Woodford S Van Meter
  • Nunzio P Sossi
  • Edward L Shaw
  • Peter A Shriver
  • Ronald D Plotnik
  • Walter E Beebe
  • H Dwight Cavanagh
  • John C Affeldt
  • Niraj P Patel
  • Stefan D Trocme
  • Alexandra M P Kostick

Detail Information

Publications10

  1. ncbi Donor age and corneal endothelial cell loss 5 years after successful corneal transplantation. Specular microscopy ancillary study results
    Jonathan H Lass
    Cornea Donor Study Coordinating Center, Jaeb Center for Health Research, 15310 Amberly Drive, Suite 350, Tampa, FL 33647, USA
    Ophthalmology 115:627-632.e8. 2008
    ..To determine whether endothelial cell loss 5 years after successful corneal transplantation is related to the age of the donor...
  2. ncbi An evaluation of image quality and accuracy of eye bank measurement of donor cornea endothelial cell density in the Specular Microscopy Ancillary Study
    Jonathan H Lass
    Cornea Donor Study Coordinating Center, Jaeb Center for Health Research, 15310 Amberly Drive, Suite 350, Tampa, FL 33647, USA
    Ophthalmology 112:431-40. 2005
    ....
  3. ncbi Donor risk factors for graft failure in the cornea donor study
    Joel Sugar
    University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
    Cornea 28:981-5. 2009
    ..The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between donor factors and 5-year corneal graft survival in the Cornea Donor Study...
  4. ncbi Recipient risk factors for graft failure in the cornea donor study
    Alan Sugar
    W K Kellogg Eye Center, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
    Ophthalmology 116:1023-8. 2009
    ..To identify recipient factors that may be related to risk of corneal graft failure...
  5. ncbi The effect of ABO blood incompatibility on corneal transplant failure in conditions with low-risk of graft rejection
    Steven P Dunn
    Michigan Cornea Consultants, PC, Southfield, USA
    Am J Ophthalmol 147:432-438.e3. 2009
    ....
  6. ncbi The effect of donor age on corneal transplantation outcome results of the cornea donor study
    Robin L Gal
    Society of Northeastern New York Lions Eye Bank of Albany, Albany, New York, USA
    Ophthalmology 115:620-626.e6. 2008
    ..To determine whether graft survival over a 5-year follow-up period using corneal tissue from donors older than 65 is similar to graft survival using corneas from younger donors...
  7. ncbi Specular microscopy ancillary study methods for donor endothelial cell density determination of Cornea Donor Study images
    Beth Ann Benetz
    Specular Microscopy Reading Center, Department of Ophthalmology, Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
    Curr Eye Res 31:319-27. 2006
    ..The importance of two independent readings is evident in that image quality ratings differed between the two readers by one grade in 36% of all images and ECD counts differed by >or=5% for 31% of analyzable images...
  8. ncbi Clinical profile and early surgical complications in the Cornea Donor Study
    Mark J Mannis
    Cornea 25:164-70. 2006
    ..Baseline patient data, including indications for transplant, intraoperative complication rates, and early postoperative complication rates are described herein...
  9. ncbi Baseline donor characteristics in the Cornea Donor Study
    Alan Sugar
    Cornea 24:389-96. 2005
    ..Fewer epithelial abnormalities were observed with shorter death to preservation time...
  10. ncbi Endothelial cell density to predict endothelial graft failure after penetrating keratoplasty
    Jonathan H Lass
    Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Eye Institute, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
    Arch Ophthalmol 128:63-9. 2010
    ....