Beschreibung:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec>
<jats:title>Purpose</jats:title>
<jats:p>To determine retinal thickness (RT) changes and the incidence of macular edema after uncomplicated Descemet membrane endothelial keratoplasty (DMEK-ME) in patients without ME risk factors.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Methods</jats:title>
<jats:p>In this retrospective study, 107 pseudophakic eyes of 74 patients with Fuchs endothelial dystrophy (FED) (79.4%) or bullous keratopathy (BK) (20.6%) underwent DMEK surgery between 2016 and 2019 at the Department of Ophthalmology, RWTH Aachen University. Patients with intra- or postoperative complications as well as pre-existing risk factors for ME were excluded. Macular spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) and best spectacle-corrected visual acuity (BSCVA) measurements were performed before, 1 week, 1 month, and 6 months after surgery. Retinal thickness (RT) was analyzed in the central foveal 1 mm (CSF), parafoveal 3 mm and 6 mm subfield.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Results</jats:title>
<jats:p>Eight eyes (7.5%) developed DMEK-ME 1 month after surgery. Six DMEK-ME eyes (75%) were rebubbled, compared with 31.3% (31 of 99; <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> = 0.02) of the non DMEK-ME eyes. DMEK-ME eyes had a significantly thicker CSF 1 month after surgery (432.0 ± 97.6 μm) compared with non-DMEK-ME eyes (283.7 ± 22.2 μm; <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> = 0.01). The other subfields and time points showed no significant RT changes. DMEK-ME significantly impaired BSCVA (0.38 ± 0.92 logMAR) only 1 month after surgery in comparison to the non DMEK-ME eyes (0.23 ± 0.87 logMAR, <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> = 0.015).</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Conclusion</jats:title>
<jats:p>Excluding systemic and surgery-related risk factors, rebubbling increases the risk of DMEK-ME. Performing a CSF scan 1 month after surgery, particularly in rebubbled eyes, efficiently detects DMEK-ME and allows the prompt initiation of treatment, e.g., topical corticosteroid and non-steroidal (NSAID) eye drops.
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