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Purpose: Corneal neurotization (CN) is a novel, potentially curative surgical procedure for the treatment of neurothophic keratopathy (NK). Patients with severe NK can present with corneal opacification requiring optical keratoplasty, which would likely fail without a proper trophic support of corneal nerves in the recipient cornea., Methods: This is a pilot study on 4 patients undergoing keratoplasty after CN. Pre- and postoperative data at 12, 24 months and at the last follow-up were collected for the examination of (i) best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), (ii) slit lamp examination and photograph acquisition with and without fluorescein staining, (iii) corneal aesthesiometry, (iv) in vivo confocal microscopy of the central cornea. Neurophysiological study of the corneal reflex before corneal graft and at last follow up was performed., Results: Four female patients (47.25 ± 5.06 y.o.) underwent keratoplasty after CN (3 penetrating keratoplasty, 1 deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty). The mean interval between CN and keratoplasty was 22 (± 12) months. The mean graft survival time was 42 (± 25) months. Graft follow-up ranged from 72 to 132 months. At the final follow-up, BCVA was improved in 2 out of 4 patients. The mean corneal sensitivity was 11.9 ± 8.3 mm at last follow-up. In vivo confocal microscopy confirmed the presence of functioning nerves at the last follow-up in all patients. NK-related complications occurred in 3 eyes (2 persistent epithelial defect, 1 corneal melting). The former complication was successfully treated by autologous serum eye drops while the latter required repeated keratoplasty., Conclusions: Keratoplasty is a viable strategy to improve visual acuity in patients with corneal opacity who underwent CN for the treatment of NK. Even in the presence of functioning corneal nerves before keratoplasty, surgeons should be aware of the increased rate of NK-related complications that could require the need for repeated procedure.

Purpose: To detect corneal inflammation and apoptosis induced after small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE) at different refractive corrections for moderate to high values of myopia., Methods: Fifty patients (50 eyes) suffering from medium to high myopia (spherical equivalent refraction from -3.75 to -10.00 diopters (D) with refractive astigmatism under -0.75 D) underwent SMILE in order to correct myopic error. In vivo evaluation was done by corneal confocal microscopy (IVCM) and ex vivo by immunohistochemistry. After surgery, all corneal lenticules were checked for regularity, entirety, and fixed in formalin for immunohistochemistry evaluation of apoptosis (TUNEL) and inflammation (CD11b) levels. Postoperative assessments took place during the first week and the first and third months after surgery. Patients returned for IVCM examination for analysis of the corneal stromal femtosecond laser treatment interfaces reflectivity., Results: No correlation was observed between treated myopic refractive error and number of CD11b + and TUNEL + cell in all analyzed extracted lenticules. IVCM at 1 week and 1 month of follow-up showed numerous reflective particles at the laser treatment interface with a moderate light scattering. In semi-quantitative analysis of reflectivity intensity at the laser interfaces, a statistical difference was evident only between 1 week and 1 month (p = 0.0213)., Conclusions: SMILE, as an innovative all-femto surgical procedure, results in a reduced tissue inflammation and apoptosis levels with a minimum tissue response, in terms of interface reflectivity, and there are no statistically significant differences among variable treated refractive error range.