Treatment of total limbal stem cell deficiency with autologous ex vivo cultivated limbal epithelial stem cell graft

Abstract

Limbal epithelial stem cell (LSC) deficiency is severe disease of the anterior eye surface, causing corneal opacification and significant vision loss in the affected patients. Treatment of such patients by corneal graft is ineffective due to the fact that corneal donor tissue cannot survive in the eye without LSC. One of possible treatment options is to provide LSC from the other, unaffected eye, and to perform corneal graft later on, as a second procedure. In this paper, we have evaluated the visual outcome and clinical improvement in three eyes receiving ex vivo cultivated limbal epithelial stem cell graft to treat their limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD) caused by corneal burn. We aimed at determining whether this treatment alone might provide sufficient visual improvement to avoid corneal grafting as a second surgery.