Study characteristics	BCVA	Spherical equivalent refraction	Amount of regular astigmatism	Degree of irregular astigmatism	Endothelial cell (EC) count or loss	Primary graft failure	EK graft dislocation	Incidence of graft rejection
AAO Technology Assessment (Lee WB 2009)	Review of DSEK literature	Mean range 20/34 to 20/66 at 9 months	Induced hyperopia of 0.7 D to 1.5 D	Induced astigmatism of 0.4 to 0.6 D	‐	Mean EC loss of 37% at 6 months and 42% at 12 months	Mean, 5% (range 0% to 29%)	Mean 14% (range 0% to 82%)	Mean 10% (range 0% to 45%)
Price MO February 2010	Review of EK literature	Visual recovery more rapid following EK	Hyperopic shift of 0.5 to 1.5 D	Mean postoperative cylinder of 0.85 to 1.6 D in EK versus 3.2 to 4.9 D with PKP	‐	Mean EC loss of between 24% to 61% at 12 months	Between 0% to 29%	Mean 15% (range 0% to 82%)	Mean 12%
Nanavaty 2011	Systematic review of EK versus PKP for FED	No difference in BSCVA between EK and PKP	Insufficient data to compare between EK and PKP	Significantly less postoperative regular astigmatism following EK (low quality data)	Significantly less irregular astigmatism following EK (RCT data)	Weak evidence of greater loss of EC following EK than PKP (low quality data)	Rate 0 to 10% of EK cases. No difference between EK and PKP (low quality data)	Range 3% to 63% (low quality data)	Weak evidence of reduced risk in EK (0 to 7.5%) versus PKP (5.3% to 23.3%) (low quality data)
Present review	Systematic review of EK versus PKP for FED	One RCT showed difference	Insufficient data to compare between EK and PKP	Insufficient data from RCTs	One RCT showed significantly less irregular astigmatism following EK	One RCT showed more endothelial cell loss with EK	Insufficient data from RCTs	Insufficient data from RCTs	Insufficient data from RCTs