Refraction change after keratoplasty

Objective To explore the refraction changes after penetrating keratoplasty.Methods 65 cases (68 eyes) underwent penetrating keratoplasty with diagnoses as keratoconus,corneal leukoma or corneal dystrophy.The patients were followed up for 2 years.Results All grafts were transparent after sugery.The visual acuities were improved in all cases,however most patients had residual ametropia.The corrected visual acuities were better than the naked vision.The astigatism was bigger at the early stage after surgery.As time went by,the astigmatism became smaller.The graft and the plant bed had the tendency to recover to the normal physiological condition.The astigmatism was smaller in the group with large graft than that in the group with small graft at different time points after surgery (P ＜ 0.05).The axial length became shorter after sugery compared with the preoperative values (P ＜ 0.05).The shortage of axial length was larger in the group with equal size of graft and bed than the group in which the graft was bigger than the bed 0.25 mm (P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion The patients have better vision,shorter axial length and larger astigmatism after keratoplasty.The closer of the size of the graft and bed are,the more shortening of the axial length becomes.The eyeball with smaller graft usually has larger astigmatism.Suitable size of the corneal graft,the match of the graft and bed,time of removing sutures and skill of suturing are the factors which influence the refraction after keratoplasty. Key words: Keratoplasty ;  Refraction ;  Graft, corneal