Many surgeons are moving away from full thickness corneal transplantation (because of risks involving rejection, irregular astigmatism, and wound dehiscence) to partial thickness transplantations of either the anterior or posterior (endothelial) layers. However this technique is not without its drawbacks. DSAEK uses a mechanical microkeratome to cut the graft, but vision is limited by the roughness of the cut surface.
DSAEK can lead to significant refractive error due to the non-uniform shape of the microkeratome cut graft, and the roughness of the microkeratome cut surface limits vision to an average of 20/31. Optical coherence tomography (OCT)-guided laser shaping and smoothing may improve the refractive and visual outcome.
