Information about a stage related therapy that we propose: For the last 15 years we are working on conventional and surgical therapy of keratoconus. We have come to the conclusion that the present customary suggestion to use contact lenses up to the last stage of the disease is not substantiated and should no longer be recommended.

This recommendation is meant to help patients to bridge the problems of their initial keratoconus to the stage III or IV. A penetrating keratoplasty must then be performed. The problem of this treatment is, that the endothelium of the donor button

which is the most important layer of the cornea - as it feeds the cornea with oxygen - degenerates within a few years. The frequency of re-operations after 10 years reaches more than 50% (The Australian Corneal Graft Registry 2004 Report, research on 11.000 operations). Numbers cited there correspond to our experience on 4.000 corneal transplants carried out here. The disease is not healed by the transplantation of a donor cornea in full thickness, which may only lead to a temporary improvement.

In almost all of the Keratoconus patients the endothelium is healthy

and should be preserved. Any possible healing of the disease can only be achieved by maintaining these patient's own internal layers. Therefore we think that suggestions that postpone a disease-stopping therapy are no longer justifiable.

Goal of the stage-related therapy therefore is to maintain the patient's own cornea.

There are the following possibilities:
Under the prerequisite of staging the disease like shown in the following table, we recommend for stage I and II the procedures that bring the cone into a standstill.