To Evaluate the Effectiveness of Plasmapheresis as a Method for the Graft Disease Prevention in Patients with Keratoplasty

Purpose: to evaluate the effectiveness of plasmapheresis as a method for preventing and treating the graft rejection reaction in corneal transplantation.

Patients and methods. The study involved patients with surgical pathology of the cornea, who underwent a prophylactic course of plasmapheresis procedures and underwent penetrating keratoplasty (Main group); and patients with surgical pathology of the cornea who underwent penetrating keratoplasty, but did not undergo plasmapheresis (Comparison group), whose data were analyzed retrospectively. The control group consisted of conditionally healthy individuals of both genders. Subgroups of patients with high and low risk keratoplasty were also identified within the Main group and the Comparison group.

Results. Patients with keratoplasty who received a course of therapeutic plasmapheresis in the perioperative period demonstrated a statistically significant increase in the number of cases of a decrease in the level of C-reactive protein and a statistically significant decrease in the median values of the mean stimulated cytochemical index and the mobilization coefficient. Depending on the risk group for keratoplasty, the patients showed different dynamics of the levels of the studied interleukins after the course of plasmapheresis and keratoplasty. In patients of the Comparison group who did not receive a course of plasmapheresis in the preoperative period, over a period of 1.3 years, 22 cases (24 %) developed graft disease, while patients of both subgroups of the Main group who received a course of therapeutic plasmapheresis in the preoperative period, didn’t demonstrate any cases of graft disease. In patients of the Comparison group (in total for two subgroups), the maximum number of cases of graft disease (n = 24) was observed in the first 500 days after surgery. At the same time, the patients of the Main group who underwent plasmapheresis had the best graft survival rates: during the observation period, there were no cases of graft disease (in both subgroups).

Conclusion: the obtained data indicate the ability of plasmapheresis, performed in the perioperative period, to prevent the development of graft disease in patients with keratoplasty.

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