Labial Mucosal Epithelium Grafting for Corneal Limbus Substitution

Earlier approaches for cornea reepithelization in patients with bilateral LSCD included allogeneic corneal limbus grafting from postmortem donor or livingrelated relatives with concomitant systemic immunosuppression (Cheung and Holland, 2017) and cultivated oral mucosal epithelial transplantation (COMET) (Nishida et al., 2004). The novel surgical technique for corneal re-epithelization were described by Liu et al. (2011) and Choe et al. (2019). In both clinical studies, the autologous labial mucosal epithelium graft was transplanted as a surrogate corneal limbus for purpose of treatment the LSCD. Authors reported positive outcomes in terms of anatomical success and corneal status improvement. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the feasibility of the novel surgical intervention in clinical use.