[Suturing technic in penetrating keratoplasty--comparative study].

From the patients who underwent keratoplasty within the last three years we selected 40 out of a total of 121 with the following common features: diameter of the button 7.1 mm, indication for surgery for optical reasons, healing of the button with sufficient clarity, achieving visual acuity of 0.5 or better. In 20 patients we used a running 10/0 nylon suture; in the remaining 20 cases we combined single 8/0 silk sutures with a runing 10/0 prolene suture. No statistically significant difference between the two groups was found when corneal astigmatism was compared to six to eight months postoperatively (at least two months following suture removal). This also applied in respect of the resultant refraction difference. However, in cases of keratoconus the combined suture technique resulted in a lower degree of astigmatism than the running suture technique alone.