Editor,—Despite the fact that infantile corneas are such a rare and valuable material in our eye banks they are not always properly utilised.

Infantile corneas, because of their characteristics (steepness, flexibility, elasticity), are not preferred for transplantation in emmetropic adults if other tissue is available.1 On the other hand it has been suggested that for infants undergoing penetrating keratoplasty, donor and recipient age should be matched as closely as possible.2 Such age matching however is not always possible in the existing corneal storage system.

According to the United Kingdom Transplant Support Services Authority (UKTSSA) statistics, in 1996 there were 15 recipients in the 0–5 age group. Forty four infantile corneas were retrieved in the same period. Only five infantile recipients, however, received corneas from the same age group, while the other 10 received corneas from older donors, in some cases the age difference exceeded 50 years (Fig 1A). Of the available infantile corneas, apart from the five transplanted into infants, 17 were transplanted to recipients of various ages (11–40), and 22 were not used at all because they could not be …