Keratoconus is a bilateral degenerative disorder of the eye characterized by ectasia and thinning of the cornea, change to conical shape, irregular astigmatism, vision impairment, and eventual corneal scarring.
Although penetrating keratoplasty (PK) is still considered the gold standard for the treatment of advanced keratoconus (KCN), deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (DALK) has emerged as an alternative treatment in the last decade.
Deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (DALK) is an increasingly popular alternative to penetrating keratoplasty (PK) for patients with corneal diseases that spare the Descemet membrane (DM) and endothelium, such as Keratoconus. DALK is preferred in cases where the disease is restricted to the anterior layers of cornea.
DALK techniques have been described and classified into 2 categories, descemetic DALK (dDALK) and predescemetic DALK (pdDALK) depending on whether Descemet membrane-endothelium was thought to be exposed or minimal residual stroma was left behind.
AIM OF THE WORK:
The aim of this study was to assess long term outcome of DALK in Keratoconus patients by measuring the best corrected visual acuity, autorefraction, pentacam and specular microscopy.