Blind Woman sees with "Tooth-in-eye" Surgery
Just recently a team of specialists at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine announced on Wednesday that they were going to be the first people in America, to restore a person's sight by using a tooth. They used a procedure that is formally called "osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis," or MOOKP. As far as we know, this procedure only works for people who have become blind due to disease or other problems, such as Sharron "Kay" Thornton, age 60. She had lost her vision due to a rare disorder called Stevens-Johnson syndrome, and her eye became totally damaged.
The first step was for dentist, Dr. Yoh Sawatari, to remove a tooth from Thornton's mouth and prepare for an implant of her own dental tissue for her worse eye. This tissue would be used to make a new cornea to replace the damaged one. The doctors then removed a section of Thornton's cheek to become the soft tissue around the pupil and finally the team implanted the modified tooth with a hole drilled through the center to support a lens, and then they put in an optical cylinder. The doctors had said that since they had used her own tooth and piece of cheek, her immune system would not fight the transplant.
"Her eye looks different, but the goal is that once she's better, we can put on a cosmetic eye shield." says one of the doctors. This "tooth for an eye" technique was developed in Italy in the early 1960s, but it has been modified in Europe ever since. Hundreds of people in Japan, England and Italy have regained their vision, but it was amazing to see it caught up in America. MOOKP is used more often in Europe, but doctors in the U.S. usually choose a less tedious technique called the Boston Keratoprosthesis, which is like this procedure, but uses a prosthetic cornea instead of a tooth and cheek tissue. However, the Boston Keratoprosthesis does not work for all people.
~NS
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