Standard counting by eye banks overestimates the actual pool of viable endothelial cells. This may be the main explanation for the initially rapid decrease in ECD universally described in patients after all types of keratoplasty. Early low postoperative ECD may indicate that surgeons graft fewer living cells than the eye banks' ECD let suppose, rather than a massive pre- and postoperative cell death. The novel concept of viable ECD can be useful for assessing all types of corneal processing.