⁃ Visual Acuity:

• Best corrected distance visual acuity (BCDVA) score ≤ 75 ETDRS letters, (≥ 0.2 LogMAR, ≤ 20/32 Snellen or ≤ 0.625 decimal fraction) in the affected eye.

⁃ Ocular Health:

• Patients with non-resolving corneal epitheliopathy or epithelial defect after two or more weeks of standard non-surgical treatments (e.g., preservative-free artificial tears, gels or ointments; discontinuation of preserved topical drops; anti-inflammatory therapy, soft bandage contact lens).

• No objective clinical evidence of improvement in the last 2 weeks (≤50% reduction in fluorescein staining or ≤50% reduction in longest diameter of the epithelial defect).

• If both eyes have chronic epithelial disease, the eye with the worse epithelial disease will be treated.

• Evidence of impaired epithelial barrier manifested by fluorescein staining of the epithelium with a score 10 or higher by National Eye Institute grading.

• Patients with stage 1 (no epithelial defect), stage 2 (persistent epithelial defect, PED; without stromal loss) or stage 3 (corneal ulcer; with stromal loss) neurotrophic keratopathy25-27 limited to ≤80% corneal diameter.

⁃ Study Procedures:

• Only patients who satisfy all Informed Consent requirements may be included in the study. The patient and/or his/her legal representative must read, sign and date the Informed Consent document before any study-related procedures are performed. The Informed Consent form signed by patients and/or legal representatives must have been approved by the IRB for the current study.

• Patients must have the ability and willingness to comply with study procedures.