UK Keratoconus Self-Help and Support Association

Thought this was of interest!....

Baby - Artificial Cornea

to be honest I don't know whether to be impressed or horrified!

Brigid

You know I thought that as well!..Especially as if its the Alphacor material it needs to be performde in two stages!!!!...

But I would suspect the guy doing it is a top guy in his field....but he def putting his rep on line!...

J

Hmmmm

Problem with this sort of story is that is begs more questions than it answers... as in what medical condition the child has to require a transplant and whether there is actually a realistic chance of the child getting useful vision ouit of th eeye. If he was born with an opaque cornea, chances are the brain-eye system has already passed the "critical period" where the vision develops normally so that the possible gain in vision doesn't warrant the risks involved.

I would love to hear more about this though Jay, so keep an eagle eye out!

Lynn

Lynn

I was both amazed and appalled by the story, and frustrated at the pausity of the information provided.

I guess that the baby's family will have high expectations of a child growing with normal sight, while the surgeon may count among his criteria of success the survival of the graft for five years, with no reference to the sight it affords.

I have become very sceptical about inflated-looking success rates that are tagged to newspaper, tv or other media reports on surgical outcomes.

Andrew

Well Andrew,

It does rather smack of notches on the belt rather than concern for the child or its parents. ie more of an experiment than of any clinical value, but I don't really want to condemn too much until I see more info hence, as you say, the frustration!!

And yes, the media generally play up the wow factor and miss out boring mundane facts!

Lynn

The only person that can say how good the vision is, is the child. Medically we will know ifit is a sucess relativly quickly but that does not mean the vision is usefull.

don't know what to say

Hi

Just an update really......more informative and now the baby is post-op...good info in the two articles below

Lynn - Gives more info as to the reason of the CT, but its interesting to see what the Optham from GOSH says.

The picture in the 3rd article says a 1000 words!

Baby Artificial Cornea - 2

Baby Artificial Cornea -3

Jay

Very Interesting story.

One questions if they can do this on a 7 week old baby Can they do the op on a older person?

And what's the chance of Rejection?

David.