Better Cornea Transplant

Reported September 2006

IRVINE, Calif. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Forty-thousand Americans need a corneal transplant each year. The procedure typically involves a long and painful recovery. But now, a new twist has patients seeing better, quicker.

Sewing is her passion, but when Gwyneth Hughes lost the vision in her right eye, she thought she'd have to give up her favorite hobby for good. "When I felt I couldn't even thread a needle on the sewing machine, it was terribly frustrating," she says. But, she refused to give up. "I'm sort of a strong person and strong-willed. To be defeated with anything was really not me."

Hughes needed a corneal transplant, a procedure that typically takes more than six months to recover from. But ophthalmologist Roger Steinert, M.D., offered her a new option. Instead of a blade, he uses a laser to cut out a patient's old cornea and replace it with a new one.

"The laser can create shapes that are simply impossible to create with conventional surgery," Dr. Steinert, of University of California, Irvine, tells Ivanhoe.

The same patients who are candidates for traditional corneal transplants are almost always candidates for the laser version. Instead of a straight cut, the laser makes zigzag slices around the patient's eye and the donor cornea. The cuts interlock like puzzle pieces, so the new cornea fits in perfectly. That means surgeons don't have to stitch the eye as tightly. Patients heal faster and have a quicker recovery -- within weeks.

"For me personally, it's dynamite," Dr. Steinert says. "I mean, for the first time we're able to take technology and raise transplants to a new level."

Right now, the University of California, Irvine, is the only facility in the world that has a dedicated laser in the operating room to perform the procedure, but Dr. Steinert expects many more centers to adopt the technology soon.

Hughes had the new procedure about three months ago and now she's back to doing what she loves best -- sewing.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Rogert Steinert, M.D.
Clinical Ophthalmologist
University of California, Irvine
(949) 824-0327

Cornea Research Foundation
Indianapolis, IN 46260
(317) 814-2993
info@cornea.org

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