Analysis of efficiency and safety of corneal collagen crosslinking in patients with cornea thickness less than 400 microns after deepitelization with application of corneal lenticule graft
The article presents the analysis of efficiency and safety of corneal collagen crosslinking (CCC) in patients with keratoconus (K), with cornea thickness less than 400 microns after deepitelization, with application of corneal lenticule(CL) graft of preset-thickness. The analysis was carried out after treatment of 12 patients (12 eyes) aged from 14 to 33 years (on average 19.3±5.1 y.o.) with KIII stage, who underwent CCC with application of CL graft - a part of corneal stroma, received from operation on miopiya correction by the RELExFLEx and SMILE methods. Six months after the procedure, the average values of visual acuity increased almost twice, reduction of Kmax after CCC averaged 3.83 D with stable indices of keratopachymetry. The average value of endothelial cells density did not change significantly: initially - 2730±54 (from 2560 to 3020) cells/mm<sup>2</sup>; after six months - 2680±48 (from 2490 to 2980) cells/mm<sup>2</sup> (p>0.05). Researches of corneas by optical coherent tomography showed that the demarcation line was expressed in 11 eyes (91.7%) 1 month after CCC at depth of 228±18 (from 197 to 238) microns on average. The analysis showed that application of CL graft for patients with deepitelized cornea thickness less than 400 microns allows to effectively and safely use CCC with standard technique.