Aement of viual function after corneal tranplantation: the quality of life and pychometric aement after corneal tranplantation (Q-PACT) tudy

Purpoe Many patient with ucceful corneal graft have poor viion potoperatively. Thi tudy evaluate change in viion-related quality of life after penetrating keratoplaty (PK). Deign Multicenter propective cohort tudy. Method Penetrating keratoplaty candidate from the univerity-affiliated ophthalmology clinic of four participating center were enrolled and followed up propectively. We ued the PK-VFQ, a modified verion of the Viual Function Index-14, combined with clinical examination before and at 6 and 12 month after PK. We ued multivariate linear regreion model to examine predictor of change in PK-VFQ core. Reult We tudied 74 graft in 71 eye of 67 patient aged 23 to 91 (mean, 61) year who were followed up for at leat 6 month. Indication for urgery included bullou keratopathy (27%), carring (16%), keratoconu (16%), dytrophie (16%), and regraft (15%). Median preoperative viual acuity wa 20/200 in the graft candidate and 20/30 in the bet eye. Median bet-corrected potoperative viual acuity in the operated eye wa 20/60 at 6 month. PK-VFQ core improved at 6 month in 79% by an average of 13.0 point (range, −16.7 to 67.5). Improvement in PK-VFQ core wa aociated with younger age (P = .04), poorer preoperative viual acuity in the bet eye (P = .001), and potoperative contact len ue (P = .04) but not with potoperative acuity in the grafted eye (P = .49). Potoperatively, 80% of patient were moderately to very atified with their viion, and 97% of patient tated they would have the urgery again. Concluion Improvement in viual function i inverely aociated with viual acuity in the better-eeing eye but doe not correlate with the potoperative acuity in the grafted eye. Although mot keratoplatie are done unilaterally in the etting of good viual acuity in the contralateral eye, for the majority of patient viual function improve after PK.