Epikeratophakia for pediatric aphakia

C. G. Kelley, R. H. Keates and R. G. Lembach

We used epikeratophakia for rehabilitation in 11 contact lens-intolerant aphakic children aged 9 months to 14 years. Minimum follow-up was five months; the longest was 12 months. There were no graft failures, and no patients were unavailable for follow-up. Objective postoperative overrefractions on all patients revealed that an average of 93% of the desired correction was obtained. Residual corrections ranged from -3.75 diopters spherical equivalent to +2.87 D. Nine of the 11 children were of verbal age; their spectacle visual acuities averaged 20/50, with a range of 20/20 to 20/80. Preverbal children all tolerated occlusive therapy, although accurate visual acuities could not be obtained. Our early results with this modality as therapy for monocular aphakia in the pediatric population have demonstrated improvement in visual function in all patients to date.