Vitrectomy combined with KPro surgery

Jennifer Lim, MD, FARVO sat down with David Hutton, Managing Editor, Ophthalmology Times®, to discuss her presentation at this year's Vit-Buckle Society meeting on keratoprosthesis combined with vitrectomy surgery.

Video transcript

Editor’s note: This transcript has been edited for clarity.

David Hutton:

Hello, I'm David Hutton of Ophthalmology Times. The Vit-Buckle Society held its annual meeting in Las Vegas, and Doctor Jennifer Lim made a presentation titled "KPro Surgery." Doctor Lim thank you so much for joining us today. Tell us a little bit about your presentation.

Jennifer Lim, MD, FARVO:

Thanks so much for having me, David, it's my pleasure to tell you about KPro surgery.

So at the Vit-Buckle meeting, I presented on the use of a keratoprosthesis combined with vitrectomy, and this is indicated for eyes that have severe corneal problems combined with a retinal condition. Typically.

Now at [University of Illinois] we've actually switched to doing KPros with vitrectomy as the primary surgery. And the reason for that is that we found that the rates of complications, particularly glaucoma, are much lower when you do the vitrectomy combined with initial KPro surgery. And also add a glaucoma drainage device at the same time. And the reason for this is that the most common complication after KPro surgery is glaucoma.

And so with the use of this combined surgery, we pretty much found that it was 8% in patients who had uncontrolled pressures versus 48% in our series for combined surgery, compared to KPro surgery alone. And then we also found that the rates of complications were also markedly lower for other things like retro prosthetic membranes, retinal detachments, epiretinal membranes.

We're not the only group that found that other groups such as Kang & Co workers and Perez & Co workers also found lower rates of complications when vitrectomy was combined with the keratoprosthesis surgery or KPro for short.