Minimally Invasive Corneal Neurotization Technique

In this surgical video, Drs. Ilya Leyngold, Michelle Latting and Michael Yen perform a corneal neurotization surgery with infraorbital nerve. The minimally invasive procedure restores corneal sensibility and integrity in patients with neurotrophic keratopathy. Using an infraorbital nerve as a sensory donor nerve, they make an incision in the inferior conjunctival fornix and carefully dissect to the infraorbital rim. After elevating the intraorbital nerve from the canal, the nerve allograft and infraorbital nerve are copated. They cut the graft to the appropriate length and divided it into fascicles to remove the epineurium. Fascicles were trimmed and then secured to the sclera using fibrin glue. The authors published their technique and surgical outcomes from 7 patients in the March-April 2019 issue of Ophthalmic Plastic Reconstructive Surgery.

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