Individuals whose disease is in the anterior portion of the cornea, such as patients who have had complications from LASIK surgery or who have certain corneal dystrophies, are excellent candidates for lamellar corneal transplants.
A lamellar cornea transplant is another name for a partial thickness cornea transplant ie. is only one third of anterior portion the patient's cornea is transplanted. This has many advantages over a normal cornea transplant in that the rate of rejection is almost negligible and if it does reject it can easily be replaced with another lamellar transplant with almost no additional risk to the patient.
An added advantage of the lamellar transplant is that they button can be lifted at a later date and the patients' residual refractive error can then be corrected with an excimer laser procedure at very little additional risk to the patient.