Corneal Transplants Can Carry Infection Risk

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To reduce the risk of infection, donors who had blood or other infections are often not allowed to donate corneas. Also, antiseptic tools are used when removing the cornea from the donor and preserving it before transplant.

One expert thinks that because the risk of infection is so small, patients should not fear having corneal transplant surgery.

"The number of infections is very small," said Dr. Joel Sugar, a professor of ophthalmology and visual science at the University of Illinois at Chicago Eye Center and author of an accompanying editorial in the journal. "The Eye Bank Association of America has a very stringent and effective system for reporting such cases."

People who die in hospitals or from cancer make up the largest number of cornea donors, Sugar noted.

"To eliminate those categories for this low-risk event does not make sense. It does highlight, however, the ongoing need to be vigilant in looking for risk factors for infections and doing everything we can to reduce the frequency of infections, even though they are exceedingly small," he said.

Another report in the same issue of the journal concludes that older white people are more likely to develop advanced forms of age-related macular degeneration than black people.

In the study, Dr. Susan B. Bressler, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and colleagues found that whites 65 and older were more likely to have advanced macular degeneration than blacks -- 1.7 percent versus 1.1 percent, respectively.

What's more, a form of macular degeneration called geographic atrophy was more common among whites than blacks -- 1.8 percent compared to 0.3 percent, the researchers found.

"Such data strongly suggest that white individuals are more likely to progress to advanced vision-disabling age-related macular degeneration (certainly to geographic atrophy) than black individuals," Bressler's team concluded. The researchers also suggested that blacks may have a mechanism that protects them from age-related macular degeneration and other eye problems.

More information

For more on corneal transplants, visit the U.S. National Eye Institute.