Abstract
Purpose::
To study the incidence of acute hydrops in a 5 year period at Hospital de Olhos Sadalla Amin Ghanem (HOSAG), in Joinville - Brazil, a reference hospital, and to compare the outcomes of the first group, who underwent clinical treatment to the second group, with surgical treatment.
Methods::
We retrospectivelly studied the charts of 428 patients with keratoconus that were seen from January 2000 to December 2005.
Results::
The number of acute hydrops was 3.9% (23 eyes of 17 patients). The mean age was 24,3 years (9 to 40 years), 12 male (70%) and 5 female (30%). The first group, 14 eyes, underwent clinical treatment, and the average recovery time was 63.5 days. The second group, 9 eyes, underwent surgery: -3 with autologus blood injection in the anterior chamber (AC); - 4 with air injection in the AC; -2 with 14% C3F8 injection in AC. The average recovery time was 20.4 days. In the first group, due to prolonged recovery time, 2 eyes developed corneal neovascularization which wasn't observed in the second group.After healing, in the first group, 6 patients (42.9%) readapted to contact lenses (CL) and 8 (57,1%) underwent penetrating keratoplasty (PKP). Both eyes that had corneal neovascularization developed graft rejection after PKP. In the second group, 5 readapted to CL (55.6%) and 4 (44.4%) underwent uneventfull PKP.
Conclusions::
We found 3.9% patients with acute hydrops in the studied population. Surgical treatment reduced recovery time, was simple, quick, almost non toxic, avoided complications as corneal neovascularization, improved life quality and the prognosis of the after-healing treatment; so it should be offered as a first option to most acute hydrops patients.
Keywords: keratoconus • degenerations/dystrophies • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: outcomes/complications