What is neovascularization of the cornea?

neovascularization of the cornea concerns the growth of blood vessels in the cornea, which normally lacks blood vessels. This most often results from deprivation of corneal oxygen or hypoxia. In response to this hypoxia, the body attempts to provide the necessary nutrients and oxygen to neglected corneal tissues by creating new blood vessels. During the early stages, this abnormal growth of blood vessels can cause any symptoms at all, or it can cause different symptoms, including eye pain and excessive tearing, light sensitivity, redness, intolerance for contact lenses and reduced vision. This lack of blood vessels means that the cornea must absorb oxygen from the air, and therefore any process that inhibits this absorption may cause corneal neovascularization. Most often, this pathology is caused by the Wucho contact lens, with a greater incidence of long -term contact lenses, considered anything over 10 hours a day.

The reported prevalence ranges from 1-30 percent for people who wear contact lenses, with a higher incidence in people who wear traditional soft plastic lenses than those who wear newer oxygen lenses. Increased risk is reported in contact lenses who have several basic conditions, including high myopia, chronically dry eyes or eye superficial diseases that generally define a group of disease processes that affect the cornea and/or conjunctions. Other causes of neovascularization of cornea include eye trauma, toxic chemical injuries, immunological diseases, infectious diseases such as keratitis and corneal rejection.

In many cases, the bearers of contacts who have only superficial neovascularization can promote discontinemical -conceive healing, or shortening the wearing time, and transition to oxygen lenses. In case of unperphic neovascularization, more aggressive treatment such as application of topical corticosteroids, hyper may be requiredBaric oxygen treatment or photodynamic therapy. Occasionally severe neovarialization of the cornea can cause the corneal scarring, leading to the opacity of the cornea and serious vision problems, and in these cases the corneal transplantation may be necessary.

corneal transplantation, also known as grafting cornea or keratoplasty, is a surgery that replaces the damaged cornea from the corneal tissue since the recently deceased donor. These transplants often have a much lower refusal rate than other transplant operations, because the cornea usually lacks blood and lymphatic vessels; The presence of these blood vessels before transplantation is therefore a risk factor for rejection. Also, patients who did not have a corneal neovalization before the surgemer can develop this condition after the corneal transplantation, leads to a greater risk of rejection. For this reason, aggressive treatment of neovascularization may be necessary before the corneal transplant surgery to ensure lower chances of refusalTí Stepa.