Post Penetrating Keratoplasty Ectasia: Incidence, Risk Factors, Clinical Features, and Treatment Options

BACKGROUND: Corneal transplantation in keratoconus (KC) patients is generally considered to be successful with a high grade of patient satisfaction. Long-term studies suggest a 6% to 11% probability of KC recurrence manifested by keratometric instability and progressive corneal ectasia. METHODS: We propose to review the frequency, risk factors for the development, and the surgical options for the correction of high irregular astigmatism due to late graft ectasia following penetrating keratoplasty (PK). RESULTS: Post-keratoplasty ectasia is characterized by increasing corneal steepening with myopic shift and high irregular astigmatism, developing years or decades after PK, mostly occurring in KC patients. Contact lenses may adequately improve the visual acuity; however, because these patients are often elderly and intolerant to hard contact lenses, ultimately a surgical correction is proposed to the patient. Compressive suture and corneal wedge resection may improve corneal astigmatism, but the outcomes are unpredictable and often temporary. For this reason, a larger PK graft is often proposed for surgical rehabilitation with the consequence of removing more of the recipient's healthy endothelium and exposing the patient to a renewed immunogenic stimulus and short-term graft failure for endothelial decompensation. More recently, lamellar keratoplasty using various techniques has been proposed as an alternative to PK in order to maximize the visual outcomes and minimize the complications. CONCLUSIONS: Management of advanced corneal ectasia is a significant challenge for corneal surgeons. Many surgical approaches have been developed, so there is a large arsenal of surgical operations to correct post-PK ectasia. Among them, large-diameter anterior lamellar keratoplasty may be a viable, safer, and effective alternative to PK for the correction of post-keratoplasty ectasia.