Effective corneal retrieval in a general hospital. The Royal Melbourne Hospital Eye Bank.

An active program of corneal transplantation depends upon a constant supply of high quality donor tissue. We describe an effective and inexpensive system of corneal donor retrieval in a major teaching hospital, and present an analysis of its donor population. During the five-month period studied in detail (May to October 1991), 365 deaths occurred in the hospital. The relatives of the decreased were contacted and consent for donation was requested after 323 (88.5%) of these deaths. Consent was given in 212 cases (65.5% of requests), with a mean age of the donor population of 69 years. After screening donor tissue for quality, 110 pairs of corneal buttons and 10 globes of sclera were dispatched for surgery during the study period, giving an overall procurement rate of over 30%. Further, the efficient notification and 'on-call' retrieval system led to very rapid corneal retrieval, resulting in an average death to storage medium time of less than two hours.