Publication:

Eye donation at a newly established eye bank of a government medical college of Eastern India: a three-year retrospective analysis of sources, retrieval logistics and tissue utilisation

Background Corneal blindness is a priority avoidable condition whose treatment depends entirely on donated tissue. We reported three years of donor tissue procurement at a newly established peripheral government eye bank in a densely populated, district of eastern India, examining the sources, geography and logistics of retrieval.

Methods We retrospectively analysed all 320 eye donations received from the eye bank’s inception (8 April 2022) to 31 March 2025. Donations were classified by procurement source- external non-governmental organisation (NGO) eye retrieval centre (ERC), local NGO ERC or own hospital cornea retrieval programme (HCRP)- and by district of origin. Retrieval intervals were compared across sources by Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests, and utilisation derived by linking donors to keratoplasties performed.

Results The 320 donors yielded 638 corneas. Despite continuous information-education-communication activity, local procurement remained minimal: only 74 donors (23.1%) came from the host district and 7 (2.2%) through the hospital’s own HCRP, while 245 (76.6%) were retrieved by a single external NGO ERC in a neighbouring district. Consequently 318 donors (99.4%) were Hindu, although the host district was Muslim-majority. Donors were elderly (mean 72.3±12.2 years; 87.2% aged ≥60 years). Mean death-to-enucleation was 3.71±1.56 hours, but transport differed markedly by source (4.31 versus 1.67 versus 0.90 hours; p<0.001), reaching 16 hours. Only 309 corneas (48.4%) were used for keratoplasty.

Conclusions Local eye donation remained persistently low despite sustained awareness activity, obliging near-total dependence on an external retrieval centre in a neighbouring district. The resulting long transport times, with advanced donor age, define twin priorities of community-specific engagement and logistic strengthening.