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Suture adjustment in penetrating keratoplasty
Author(s) -
Høvding Gunnar
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
acta ophthalmologica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.534
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1755-3768
pISSN - 1755-375X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-3768.1994.tb05024.x
Subject(s) - fibrous joint , astigmatism , medicine , ophthalmology , surgery , reduction (mathematics) , cornea , optics , physics , geometry , mathematics
Postoperative adjustment of a single running penetrating corneal graft suture was done in 19 patients (22 adjustments). The short‐term effect of this procedure was a mean reduction of corneal astigmatism of 4.39D (p < 0.0001). Thereafter, the corneal contour was fairly stable, provided that the running suture remained intact and tight. Localized loosening of the graft suture significantly increased the corneal astigmatism. Following removal of the graft suture no statistically significant mean change of corneal astigmatism was found. However, patients with a previously intact running suture tended to show increased astigmatism, while those with a previous localized suture loosening usually showed a decreased astigmatism after suture removal. The main benefit of suture adjustment is apparantly the rapid and fairly stable reduction of postkeratoplasty astigmatism usually obtained, but unfortunately this effect seems chiefly to exist only as long as the graft suture remains intact and tight.