Table 1.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study.

Criteria	Inclusion criteria	Exclusion criteria
General		Inability of venous blood sampling because of (i) venous access being not available,, (ii) anemia, (iii) cerebrovascular or cardiovascular disorders, (iv) being positive for viral markers (HBV, HCV, and HIV), (v) being bacterial active, (vi) women who are pregnant or breast-feeding, (vii) patients unable to provide informed consent, (viii) age under 18 years.
Chemical eye burn	(i) Persistent epithelial defect (ii) Inflammation and/or opacity and/or corneal neovascularization	(i) Corneal perforation/melting (ii) Limbal stem cell deficit (iii) Patients with active infections of the eye or eyelid (iv) Abnormalities of the eyelid
Severe dry eye syndrome	(i) Symptoms of dry eye with daily activity limitation (ii) Time to break-up <5 sec (iii) Schirmer's test without anaesthesia <5 mm after 5 minutes (iv) Fluorescein staining positive with or without epithelial defect (v) Patients refractory to conventional therapy
Neurotrophic keratitis	(i) Patients with persistent epithelial defects (ii) Patients refractory to conventional therapy

HBV = hepatitis B virus; HCV = hepatitis C virus; HIV = human immunodeficiency virus.