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Corneal Transplants
The eyes are the window of the soul
Leonardo da Vinci was fascinated by the dynamics of vision and considered sight "the best and most noble" of our senses.
While da Vinci's philosophy may be intuitively correct, it is an anatomical fact that the cornea is the window of the eye.
The cornea
The cornea is analogous to a clear watch crystal or window on the front surface of the eye. Light must pass through the cornea before the incredibly complex and miraculous visual process can occur. When the cornea is structurally altered by trauma or certain diseases, it becomes cloudy and often vision is impaired. In such cases a corneal transplant is needed to restore sight.
Occasionally, either through disease or injury, the corneal tissue is damaged to a point where light can no longer effectively pass through it, resulting in reduced vision. Where indicated by an ophthalmologist, a corneal transplant procedure may be performed which replaces the damaged cornea with a clear donor cornea. This is an extremely delicate microsurgical procedure.
The corneal transplant procedure has evolved over the last century and today it is performed by corneal specialists as a routine outpatient procedure on tens of thousands of patients each year. The procedure has various forms, which are utilized based on the patient’s particular disease. One of the most exciting innovations in corneal transplantation is a technique called DSAEK.
This procedure is used to visually rehabilitate patients with Fuchs' Endothelial Dystrophy and psuedophakic bullous keratopathy in a fraction of the time required by the older, more conventional corneal transplant procedure know as PKP. Other exciting innovations also have occurred in ALK (anterior lamellar keratoplasty). ALK is used to visually rehabilitate patients with keratoconus, corneal scars, and mal shaped corneas following RK or LASIK surgery. The beauty of this procedure is that the patients can be rehabilitated with no fear of corneal endothelial graft rejection.