Abstract

Objective: Control of corneal damage with endothelial cell count and serological screening before keratoplasty are critical issues for recipient health. We aimed to detect the pre-transplantation hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and Treponema pallidum serological test results of post-mortem corneal donors and to determine their correlation with serological and molecular tests to support or verify low reactive/positive test results.

Methods: The serological test results of post-mortem corneal donors sent from the eye bank between January 2015 and December 2020 were analyzed retrospectively, and demographic and serological test data of these donors were obtained from ELISA laboratory data by the ISHOP system Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty Hospital.

Results: Of 424 post-mortem corneal donors, 161 (37.7%) were female, and 263 (62.03) were male; 13 (3.06%) had high HBsAg positivity, 23 (5.42%) had low anti-HCV reactivity, 19 (4.48%) had low anti-HIV 1/2 reactivity, and two (0.47%) had high Tp-Ab IgG reactivity. Therefore, the corneas of a 30-year-old woman with positive HCV RNA result and 13 donors with high titer HBsAg positivity, and two donors with high reactivity in the Tp-Ab IgG test were not eligible for the Eye Bank after performing a real-time PCR assay for the confirmation of donors with low reactivity.

Conclusion: We believe that it is essential to apply serological tests pre-keratoplasty to prevent infection transmission and perform confirmatory tests in low positivity/reactivity that may occur due to post-mortem coagulum hemolysis, within the framework of a collective and specific algorithm.