“It’s akin to watching people emerge from a time capsule and reintroduce themselves to the world,” said Dr. Greg Moloney of the procedure’s success. “It’s incredibly emotional for us.” Courtesy Phil Chapman
According to CNN
When Brent Chapman was only 13 years old, during a Christmas basketball game he took ibuprofen. It’s a medication he had taken before, but the reaction proved exceptional: a severe reaction with burns all over his body, including the surfaces of his eyes.
Chapman lay in a coma for 27 days. He lost his left eye to an infection and much of the vision in the other eye. The body recovered, but the sight did not fully return.
Unique Vision Restoration Technique: Osteo-Odontokeratoplasty
Over the last twenty years I have undergone almost fifty surgeries, trying to preserve this eye, most of which were corneal transplants.
This year, clinical associate professor of corneal surgery Dr. Greg Moloney from the University of British Columbia managed to restore Chapman’s sight using a rare procedure that involves implanting the patient’s own tooth into the eyeball.
The essence of the method, known as osteo-odontokeratoplasty, is removing the patient’s own tooth, fixing a portion of the bone tissue in the cheeks, and placing a complex construct inside the eyeball. It is truly an extreme option when standard corneal transplantation does not yield results.
This is really an ideal structure for keeping the focusing element in place. It’s solid, strong, durable under adverse conditions, and the body accepts it because it is part of oneself.
The next step involves creating an opening in front of the eyeball to make room for the new component. When the tooth-and-lens block integrates with living tissue, it is attached to the front of the eye, restoring the function of the damaged cornea. The operation usually lasts more than 12 hours and is performed only by a handful of specialists in the world.
The tooth was removed in February, and the construct was placed in the eye in June. The last operation to smooth the lens and correct visual distortion occurred on August 5. On August 13, Brent received glasses and now sees 20/30 vision – details at 20 feet that people with normal vision see at 30 feet. The first thing he saw after the operation was the silhouette of a city from Dr. Moloney’s office.
This story shows how a combination of cutting-edge surgical methods and the patient’s own tissues can open new prospects for people with serious eye injuries. Osteo-odontokeratoplasty remains one of the rarest but most promising methods of restoring vision in cases where conventional corneal transplantation does not yield results.
