Paediatric aphakic epikeratoplasty: early Australian experience.

Epikeratoplasty has been performed on eight eyes of seven patients by one surgeon in Melbourne since March 1988. All cases were contact lens or spectacle intolerant. Standard surgical techniques utilising donor lenticules imported from the United States and including an annular keratectomy were employed for the procedure. An eight-month follow-up is available for the first two cases, aged two and 10 years. The elder of these children has achieved corrected acuity of 6/9 in each eye. Refractive and early visual acuity results are presented for the five other cases which have at least two months of follow-up. The results indicate that in appropriately selected patients, epikeratoplasty offers a safe, effective modality for visual restoration and development in otherwise untreatable aphakic children.