EEBA Program (PDF/3MB) - EEBA - Annual Meeting

EUROPEAN STUDY ON RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT OF ENDOTHELIAL CELL COUNT IN EYEBANKS: THE EURO-KERATOTEST STUDYG. Thuret 1 , Z. He 1 , A. Bernard 1 , S. Piselli 1 , N. Campolni¹, B. M. Ha Thi 1 , J. M. Dumollard 2 , M. Peoc’h 2 , N. Delesalle 3 , P. Gain 1¹Corneal Graft Biology, Engineering and Imaging Laboratory, EA2521, Federative Institute of Re-search in Sciences andHealth Engineering, Faculty of Medicine, Jean Monnet University; ²Department of Pathology, University Hospital ofSaint-Etienne; ³Agence Nationale de Sécurité du Médicament et des produits de santé (ANSM), FrancePurpose: In European eye banks, 15-20% of corneas are discarded for inappropriate ECD. Given theimportance of a precise, robust and reproducible ECD, we organized an international survey of thequality of ECD determination.Methods: The Euro-Keratotest study reproduced 2 surveys driven in 2003 and 2008 by our team in the18 French eye banks (Transplantation2004), with substantial improvements: test slides (3rd generationkeratotests) were fabricated with technologies employed in micro-optics, from images of real humancorneas (Optics Letters2012). Twelve different mosaics with ECDs covering the usual range observedin eye banks, were created in a 8x8 mm quartz square. Keratotests, observable with transmitted lightor specular microscopes were sent simultaneously to all volunteer eye banks (n=100). Each technicianhad to determine ECD and morphometry of the 12 mosaics with his/her standard counting method.Data were collected on a specific website.Results: A first analysis of 120 technicians of 38 eye banks will be presented. It allowed identificationof inter and intra bank variability and of bias likely involved (inappropriate counting strategy or wrongmicroscope calibration) and susceptible to be improved.Conclusions: Participation of the eye banks to this survey using 3rd generation keratotests improvesour knowledge on the reliability of cell counting methods in eye banks, and help standardize graftquality assessment. Keratotests are also perfect tools for the initial formation and continuous trainingof eye banks technicians, as well as for the eye banks certification. Grant: Interregional Hospital ClinicalResearch Project 2011, Ministry of Health, DIRC Rhônes-Alpes.52