Purpose: To compare the survival of a first penetrating keratoplasty (PK) or endothelial keratoplasty (EK) for iridocorneal endothelial (ICE) syndrome with transplant survival in Fuchs endothelial dystrophy (FED) and pseudophakic bullous keratopathy (PBK).
Methods: We compared graft survival of PK and EK for ICE syndrome for 2 time periods. We then compared graft survival in ICE syndrome with graft survival in FED and PBK. Kaplan-Meier estimates of graft survival up to 5 years posttransplant were calculated with 95% confidence intervals (CI), whereas comparisons between the groups were performed using the log-rank test.
Results: We included 86 first transplants for ICE syndrome. There was no difference in graft survival between the 58 PKs and the 28 EKs for up to 5 years after surgery (P = 0.717). For the period from 2009 to 2017, the 5-year graft survival rates for ICE syndrome were 64.3% (CI, 21.8%-88.0%) for the 16 PKs and 66.8% (CI, 41.8%-83.0%) for the 26 EKs (P = 0.469). Between 2009 and 2017, the 5-year survival rate for 42 grafts with ICE syndrome was 62.7% (CI, 39.6%-79.0%), which was lower than 75.9% (CI, 74.2%-77.4%) in 7058 transplants for FED but higher than 55.1% (CI, 52.0%-58.0%) in 3320 transplants for PBK, although the numbers of ICE transplants are too small to tell whether this difference was by chance.
Conclusions: The results indicate no difference in graft survival between PK and EK for ICE syndrome. Graft survival in ICE syndrome is intermediate between that of FED and PBK.