Cornea surgery

CORNEA

CORNEA

Cornea is the front protective clear layer of the eye covering the coloured iris. Physical or microbial attack on cornea can cause scratches, cuts, infections, etc. leading to eye pain, redness, blurred vision, tearing, discharge, and sensitivity to light.

We also offer ocular surface expertise like Surgery for Pterygium (Surfer’s Eye), treatment for common problems related to Contact lens like peripheral ulcer, along with niche diseases like chemical burns, thermal burns, Stevens Johnson syndrome, ocular cicatricial pemphigoid (OCP) etc.

FAQ

Keratoconus Infections, Dystrophies Degenerations & Corneal scars.

Not all corneal pathologies need surgery. A number of pathologies can be treated medically. However, for treatment of corneal pathologies that are not treatable with medicines, a surgery may be required. Most common corneal surgery is penetrating keratoplasty (corneal transplant).

Cornea transplant is a procedure where the diseased cornea is removed and is replaced with a donor cornea that is collected from a healthy donor after death.

A patient who requires corneal transplantation needs to register in the eye bank for cornea. When a suitable cornea is available for the patient, eye bank and the hospital will coordinate for the transplantation to be performed. The surgery is done usually under local anesthesia, for children however, general anesthesia is preferred. For full thickness corneal transplant- a round trephine is made in the cornea and similar round full thickness donor cornea is sutured to the host. For partial thickness transplant- DSEK, the donor cornea is dissected either using an automated machine called microkeratome or manually. The donor lenticule is inserted in the eye of the patient and is attached to the host using air. This procedure does not require sutures to attach the graft. Deep anterior lamellar keratplasty- in this only the anterior layers of the cornea are replaced by donor cornea. Keratoprosthesis-Here a special device called keratoprosthesis is placed in the eye. This has a central cylinder that passes through the center of the donor cornea.

After corneal transplant patient needs to use drops for a long time. These include antibiotics for a few days, steroids in tapering doses for a few months and lubricating drops.