Artificial Cornea Remarkabley Improves Vision for Infants and Blind Patients
Infants and adults who are blind due to a cloudy or damaged cornea are seeing some remarkable results thanks to a new version of an artificial implant that takes the place of the cornea, the clear covering of the eye that serves as our window on the world.
The results of operations involving the first infants and children in the world to receive the device, performed by physicians at the University of Rochester Eye Institute and a colleague at Johns Hopkins University, are being announced at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology in Las Vegas.
The latest study involved a plastic device known as the Boston Keratoprosthesis, an artificial cornea used by just a few doctors in the world to treat children(starting from six weeks onwards) who can't see because their corneas are opaque. Usually the cornea serves as a clear window, but in some children, it's as if a dark, opaque shade has been pulled over that window due to conditions like glaucoma, congenital anomalies, or previous cornea surgeries.
The study included 17 children who collectively had been through more than 100 surgical procedures, including 39 traditional cornea transplants that had failed, before the latest implant.
In the past, people have thought that keratoprosthesis, or an artificial cornea, was only for patients who were in disastrous circumstances, who couldn't receive a cornea the traditional way," said James Aquavella, M.D., the University of Rochester ophthalmologist who is pioneering the use of the implant and who operated on most of the children in the study. "Now, because of improvements in materials and in surgical technique, this should be the first choice for some patients.
Filed under Eye Treatment, Refractive Eye Surgery
You may also like to read
- Corneal transplant proves good for child glaucoma patients
- People With Damaged Corneas Will No Longer Have to Wait for Donors
- Dr. Stephen L. Ebersole Joins Local Eye Care Practice
- Does LASIK Improves Patients Lives? - FDA Review
- Dry Eye Treatment by Omega Fatty Acids in Combination with Artificial Tears
- New Artificial Eye (Retina) to Give Back Sights to Blinds
- New treatment is likely to cure Corneal disease - Keratoconus
- Astigmatism and Cataract Patients May Benefit from a New Medicare Rule
- Are You Viewing Life Through a Sheer Curtain? Yes- It's Cataract
- After 45 years, man managed to see through his damaged blind eye
March 12th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Well maybe this artificial cornea could also be used as an implantable contact lens. It may prove an interesting approach to conventional contact lenses.
Just my 2 cents.