ASSESSMENT OF THE DUTCH ORGAN‐CULTURE SYSTEM OF CORNEAL PRESERVATION WITHIN THE EYE BANK OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Thirteen per cent of all corneas harvested by the Eye Bank of South Australia during 1986 were discarded because storage time in McCarey‐Kaufman medium exceeded four days. We have therefore examined the suitability of the Dutch method of long‐term corneal storage for our purposes. Twenty‐two human corneas that had been discarded from the Eye Bank were assessed using the trypan blue‐sucrose staining technique, and then placed into long‐term storage for 15 to 17 days. They were then reassessed by vital dye staining before permanent flat‐mounts were prepared for silver staining of the endothelium. A good correlation (albeit subjective) was found between the non‐destructive and destructive techniques of endothelial cell assessment. Those corneas that failed to survive organ culture storage were easily detected. The Dutch system of corneal preservation and post‐storage assessment seems well‐suited to Australian eye‐banking.