Cystoid macular edema following penetrating keratoplasty: incidence and prognosis.

The incidence of clinically significant and angiographically documented cystoid macular edema (CME) following penetrating keratoplasty was studied in a consecutive series of 102 eyes over an average follow-up of 30 months. CME was seen only in the aphakic eyes. Twenty out of 68 eyes in this group developed CME. There was a statistically significant higher incidence of CME in eyes undergoing vitrectomy than in eyes not undergoing vitrectomy (p less than .01). Also, there was a higher incidence of CME in eyes with aphakic bullous keratopathy (p less than .01) and pseudophakic bullous keratopathy (p less than .05), when compared to eyes undergoing combined cataract extraction and corneal transplantation. All eyes with CME were empirically treated with oral prednisone (two eyes) or oral ibuprofen (18 eyes). Over an average follow-up of nine months, 13 of these eyes showed complete resolution of their CME with improvement in visual acuity to 20/60 or better in 12 eyes.