[Inlay corneo-conjunctival lamellar graft, preliminary step in surgical treatment of the sequelae of corneal burns].

Surgical rehabilitation of the eye following severe burns is difficult and frequently leads to failure. Penetrating keratoplasty gives functional improvement which is often of short duration because of recurrence of the epithelial defect or because of the gravity of the initial injury. A method which includes a first step before corneal transplantation is described: a lamellar corneo-conjunctival autotransplantation, from the uninjured fellow eye is performed in order to improve the epithelial condition of the injured eye prior to later penetrating keratoplasty. This lamellar graft was performed on 25 patients between 1984 and 1988. Analysis of the results demonstrates the efficacy of the method: no complications were noticed on the grafted or the uninjured eye; visual acuity was improved in 76% of cases; the following penetrating keratoplasty led to a good result (clear graft at one year) in 88% of cases; and in 16% of cases, functional improvement gained with this first surgical step was sufficient to avoid having to carry out the penetrating keratoplasty.