Use of Frozen-Dried Cornea as Transplant Material

KERATOPLASTY has reached the stage today at which the demand for donor corneas has exceeded the supply. The small supply is largely due to the difficulty in preserving all available corneal tissue until the time at which it is needed. With the present methods of preservation, corneal tissue held over seventy-two hours is believed to be unsatisfactory for transplantation. Such tissue is usually kept in Ringer's solution or isotonic solution of sodium chloride or in a moist chamber at a temperature of 2 or 3 C.1In an effort to increase the donor supply, the present experiment was undertaken. The purpose of the experiment was to determine the value of frozen-dried cornea (Weiss method)2for corneal transplantation, as suggested by the preliminary experiments with rat cornea of Weiss and Taylor.3 METHOD Transplants of frozen-dried rabbit cornea, prepared by Dr. Paul Weiss, were attempted on 75 normal rabbit