Eye banking and the changing trends in contemporary corneal surgery.

摘要

In 1944, Dr R. Townley Paton founded the Eye Bank for Sight Restoration in New York. Although the earliest eye banks around the world had begun to take shape in the 1930s, Dr Paton's efforts in the early 1940s helped to organize what we know as modern eye banking. During Dr Paton's time, resources were limited, both in the amount of donor corneal tissue available and in the number of practicing corneal surgeons. Since those early days of eye banking, there has been a steady increase in both the amount of tissue harvested as well as the demand for tissue distributed. In the United States, there continues to be an adequate supply of donor corneal tissue such that at this point in time, the eye banking system meets the needs of the patients and allows both patient and surgeon the luxury of scheduling elective corneal transplant surgery. Understanding the recent technical developments in corneal surgery will help to ensure that we continue to have sufficient resources in the future.