[Corneal astigmatism after penetrating keratoplasty with direct and indirect sutures (author's transl)].

After a full thickness optic keratoplasty the corneal astigmatism of 116 eyes was checked. 72 cases had been operated on with indirect, 44 with direct sutures. Up to the sixth month after the operation the astigmatism was found to be equally distributed between 0.75 and 12 dpt and until the end of the second year between 0.75 and 8 dpt. Neither the way of suturing nor the diameter of the graft nor the kind of corneal lesion had any influence on the postoperative astigmatism. After six months, the height and the axis of the astigmatism remained approximately constant; however, in four cases of keratokonus followed up for nineteen years the astigmatism gradually increased.