SAN FRANCISCO, CA– Although it is already one of medicine's most successful transplant procedures, doctors continue to seek ways to improve corneal transplants. Now, for the first time, a team of German and British researchers have confirmed that failure and rejection of transplanted corneas are more likely in patients whose eyes exhibit abnormal vessel growth, called corneal neovascularization, prior to surgery. The meta-analysis report appears in July Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.