Inflammation may be a risk factor for corneal allograft rejection, a study published in the July issue of the journal Ophthalmology states.

In a retrospective, interventional case series, researchers evaluated 62 patients with herpes simplex virus (HSV) keratitis who subsequently underwent penetrating keratoplasty (PKP) to identify any associations between clinical data and histopathologic presence of inflammation.

Histopathology revealed that 74% of the patients had active corneal inflammation. Thirty-four percent of these patients experienced graft rejection. The histopathologic presence of inflammation was a risk factor for rejection with demonstration of increased IL-8 (P = 0.0005), MCP-1 levels (P = 0.003), and a greater immunoreactivity for HLA-DR and ICAM-1 when compared with those without inflammation.

In clinical practice, perhaps this information can lead to preoperative treatment to lessen the risk of rejection in the patients that are at higher risk.

Read the entire article here ^[1] (login required)