A prospective study of histocompatibility testing for keratoplasty in high-risk patients.

Abstract

Forty high-risk patients awaiting corneal grafting were randomly selected from a 7-year cumulative list. Twenty were grafted with HLA-A and HLA-B antigen matched material. The other 20 patients were used as controls. Graft survival at two years was 60% (12/20) in the control group and 90% (18/20) in the study group; at five years it was 55% (11/20) in the control group and 85% (17/20) in the study group.