Purpose To compare corneal graft survival rate after primary Descemet's stripping endothelial keratoplasty (DSEK) and primary penetrating keratoplasty (PK) in patients with prior trabeculectomy or medically managed glaucoma.

Methods A retrospective chart review was conducted on consecutive patients who underwent DSEK or PK. Inclusion criteria consisted of eyes with a diagnosis of glaucoma prior to corneal transplantation and ≥6 months of follow-up. Graft failure was defined as an oedematous cornea with failure to maintain deturgescence lasting beyond a period of 1 month of intense steroid therapy or vascularisation and scarring resulting in irreversible loss of central graft clarity. Corneal graft survival was calculated using Kaplan–Meier survival analysis. Patients were divided into four groups: trabeculectomy-DSEK, trabeculectomy-PK, medical-DSEK or medical-PK.

Results Fifty eyes (30 DSEK, 20 PK) of 50 patients (mean age 77±10 years) met the enrolment criteria. Mean follow-up was 17.4±14.2 months. A significantly higher proportion of the DSEK grafts (50%) compared with PK grafts (10%) failed at last follow-up (p=0.005). Kaplan–Meier analysis identified a significant difference between the groups with respect to time to graft failure (p=0.006). Patients with trabeculectomy who underwent DSEK had earlier graft failures than all other groups (p≤0.035), but there were no differences between the medical-DSEK, medical-PK and trabeculectomy-PK groups (all p>0.35).

Conclusions Eyes with prior glaucoma showed higher rates of DSEK graft failure compared with PK. Patients with prior trabeculectomy demonstrated higher and earlier corneal graft failure rates with DSEK than with PK.