Clinical and refractive features of penetrating keratoplasty (SKP)

Diseases of the eye are one of the most important economic and social problems around the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), corneal opacity is a global cause of vision loss, accounting for 5.1% of all blindness - an estimated 1.9 million people. It is estimated that about 23 million people worldwide suffer from unilateral corneal damage. Common pathologies leading to vision loss include: keratoconus, trachoma, onchocerciasis, neonatal conjunctivitis, and keratomalacia as a result of vitamin A deficiency. The main intervention to restore the structure of the corneaand improve vision in these patients is end-to-end keratoplasty. This procedure is a replacement of the pathologic cornea by a donor cornea.The first successful penetrating keratoplasty was performed by Edward Conrad Zirm in 1905. He performed the transplantation of a donor graft into a human being. This solved one of the major problems of ophthalmology at the time - helping patients with bilateral corneal leukemia. "It was a ray of light that cut through the gloom of despondency" - the outstanding Soviet ophthalmosurgeon V.P. Filatov later noted.