Abstract
Purpose:
To evaluate the change of quality of life (QOL) after keratoplasty.
Methods:
Thirty-one patients that had keratoplasty at the Tokyo Dental College Ichikawa Hospital between May 2007 and May 2012 were studied. We used the VFQ25 for QOL assessment and clinical examinations were performed before and 6 months after surgery as well. We investigated the factors that correlated with VFQ score using multivariate linear regression models and paired t-test.
Results:
Age of the patients ranged from 32 to 82 years (mean; 58). Indications for surgery were bullous keratopathy (35%), keratoconus (29%), scarring (19%), birth injury (7%), aniridia (7%), and dystrophies (3%). They were treated with either penetrating keratoplasty (PKP;55%) Descemet's stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK;35%) or deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (DALK;10%). Median best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was 0.10±0.13 preoperatively, which was significantly improved to 0.41 ±0.23 at 6 months postoperatively. Median VFQ scores improved in all subscales including general vision, distance vision, peripheral vision, mental health, and dependency. BCVA in the non-operated eyes was significantly correlated with near and distance vision, mental health, and dependency. Among the surgical methods, DSAEK showed more improvements in distance vision and mental health compared with those in PKP. Other factors such as sex, complications, and preoperative and postoperative BCVA in the operated eye were not correlated with VFQ scores at 6 months.
Conclusions:
Keratoplasty improved patients’ QOL including mental health and dependency in many cases, especially those had DSAEK. Improvement of QOL was associated with BCVA in the non-operated eye but not with BCVA in the operated eye.
Keywords: 479 cornea: clinical science •
741 transplantation