Corneal epithelium in penetrating keratoplasty.

We studied corneal epithelium in 66 patients with bullous keratopathy treated with penetrating keratoplasty using McCarey-Kaufman stored donor corneas. Epithelium was evaluated at times of storage, surgery, and postoperative dressing changes. Epithelium was intact in 43 of the donor corneas at storage, and 23 had 5 to 100% (median, 50%) epithelium missing. At the end of the keratoplasty procedure, 16 grafts had epithelium intact, and 50 had 5 to 100% (median, 20%) epithelium missing. Postoperative epithelial healing time ranged from one to 12 days, with a median of two days. Postoperative healing was significantly prolonged when donor corneal epithelium was missing at keratoplasty. As the amount of epithelium intact at the end of surgery decreased, the number of days to heal postoperatively increased. We found that donor corneas could be stored as long as 79 hours, with 63 hours in McCarey-Kaufman medium, and still have epithelium intact at the end of the keratoplasty procedure.