[Clinical analysis of keratoplasty for 121 children in Shanghai].

OBJECTIVE: To determinate the clinical characteristics of children underwent corneal transplantation in Shanghai, including the indications, the age and gender distributions, etc.. METHODS: Records of 122 keratoplasties in 122 eyes of 121 children below 17 years old, undertaken from January 1, 2003 to January 1, 2006, were gathered by four ophthalmic units in Shanghai as a multiple centre study and the data were analyzed by the statistic software SPSS 13.0 retrospectively, especially on the indication, the age and gender distributions. RESULTS: One hundred and twenty one patients were enrolled in this study. Traumatic corneal scar (22.3%) and scarring after keratitis (19.8%) were the leading indications for keratoplasty, followed by congenital corneal opacity (11.6%), keratoconus (10.7%), corneal ulceration (9.1%), graft rejection (5.0%), band keratopathy (5.0%), chemical injury (5.0%), thermal burns (4.1%), corneoconjunctival dermatosis (4.1%) and congenital hereditary corneal endothelial dysfunction (3.3%). The median age was 11.0 years with the interval quartile range at 8 - 14 years. The number of male patients (77) was approximately twice as many as the female patients (44). Ninety-five patients underwent penetrating keratoplasty (78.5%), 19 patients underwent lamellar keratoplasty (15.7%) and 7 patients underwent combined penetrating keratoplasty with other surgeries (5.8%). CONCLUSIONS: Traumatic corneal scar and scarring after keratitis were the leading indications. The age of operated cases mainly in the school age. Male is more frequent than the female.