New Delhi, Apr 18 (IANS): Dr. S.N. Jha, senior ophthalmologist and his team with Sir Ganga Ram Hospital recently did a life-changing rare double cornea transplant on a 25 year old road accident patient.
Patient's eyeball along with cornea were ruptured at the time of accident. His eye was grossly damaged with bleeding inside all layers of eye as well as retina. The impact of the accident was such that his retina got detached from its place and there was collection of blood behind retina. The patient was just able to see light.
According to Dr, S.N. Jha, Head of Vitreo-Retinal Unit & Vice Chairman, Department of Ophthalmology, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, "Due to extensive damage to both cornea as well as retina, this was a challenging surgery requiring multi disciplinary approach involving both corneal and retinal surgeons. The biggest problem was retina could not be visualised during surgery due to opaque cornea. To overcome this problem, we replaced the damaged cornea with the artificial plastic cornea (Keratoprosthesis), to visualise and facilitate surgery for Retina. As the retina was extensively damaged, it took us more than 4 hours to make the retina fall in its natural place. After successful retinal reattachment, the plastic cornea was replaced with natural donor cornea taken from the cadaver donor.
This challenging Double Corneal Transplant and Retinal Reattachment surgery was performed on April 15, 2021. Very few selected centres perform this kind of surgery.
The team under the leadership of Dr. S.N. Jha consisted of Dr. Anita Ganger for Corneal Transplant and Dr. Anil Solanki for Vitreo-Retinal surgery.
According to Dr. Anita Ganger, Corneal Consultant, Department of Ophthalmology, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, "Our aim was twofold. First to restore the shape of the eyeball which otherwise would have shrunk and could have caused immense psychological trauma to the young patient due to cosmetic blemish. Second was to bring back as much vision as possible."
Both surgeries have been successful and we hope to have vision back in days to come.
The most important message is that the success of the surgery in such cases depends on timely arrival of the patient before irreversible damage to eye.