Donor Profile, Tissue Evaluation and Comparison of Voluntary and Motivated Corneal Donation in Nepal Eye Bank

PURPOSE: Corneal problems is one of the major causes of blindness in developing countries like Nepal. This study intended to analyze donor and tissue profile of Nepal Eye Bank (NEB). MATERIAL AND METHODS: This was a cross-sectional descriptive type study. Data of corneal tissues collected by NEB from January 2015 to December 2016 were used in the study. Data collected were demographic profile, cause of death, type of corneal donation (whether voluntary or motivated), quality and utilization of tissues. A comparison was made between voluntary and motivated donors. RESULTS: 1244 corneal tissues were retrieved from 639 donors. Mean age of donors was 49.4 years. 57.7% of the donors were male. There were almost equal number of donor deaths due to cardiovascular disease, 27.2%, and respiratory disease, 26.7%, followed by hanging, 17.8%. Majority of donors were motivated (n = 561, 87.7%). Mean death to preservation time was 5.79 hours (hrs). Of the harvested corneas, 1040 (83.6.%) were suitable for transplant with a mean endothelial cell count of 2850 ± 520 cells/mm(2); 16.4% were of poor tissue quality and 2.7% were seropositive. 76.2% of total tissues were of optical quality. Utilization rate of transplantable tissues was 97%. Tissues from motivated donors were significantly “younger” (p=0.0001), had better endothelial count (p=0.0001), and were of better quality (p=0.026) than those from voluntary donors. CONCLUSION: Motivated eye donation is a major and effective source of cornea collection in the eye bank under study with “younger” and better quality corneas compared to voluntary donors.