25 June 2021

Corneal transplantation

Corneal transplant is one of the most common transplant procedures... approximately 100,000 procedures are performed worldwide each year...

The first cornea transplant was performed in 1905 by Eduard Zirm (Olomouc Eye Clinic, now Czech Republic), making it one of the first types of transplant surgery successfully performed. Another pioneer of the operation was Ramón Castroviejo. Russian eye surgeon Vladimir Filatov's attempts at transplanting cornea started with the first try in 1912 and were continued, gradually improving until on 6 May 1931 he successfully grafted a patient using corneal tissue from a deceased person...

Tudor Thomas, a clinical teacher for the Welsh National School of Medicine, conceived the idea of a donor system for corneal grafts and an eye bank was established in East Grinstead in 1955.
More at Wikipedia.  When you are done using your corneas, please consider donating them to someone else.  Photo via.

3 comments:

  1. I would like to reference my comment at your previous post here:

    https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2019/06/contact-lenses-used-by-morticians-to.html?m=1

    The world of modern tissue donation is incredible, miraculous, and compassionate. Within this field, eye banking institutions are particularly impressive. The formal policies and procedures surrounding eye banking were codified in the US in the early 1960s (IIRC). Today, eye banks not only procure and process human ocular tissue, they also work with researchers to advance medicine, with academic institutions to teach surgeons new techniques, and with recipients and the families of donors who wish to communicate with one another. Corneal transplant surgery and cataract surgery are two of the most advanced, transformative surgical categories that exist today and have restored vision to countless millions of people who would have been rendered blind just a few decades ago. I am constantly humbled by this field. Thank you for shedding light on it with your post.

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  2. Somewhat related... due to lack of organ donors in some regions, transplants are down in others and more organs are being lost during shipment longer distances. We need more donors everywhere!

    I read this story yesterday:

    https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/michael-ryan/article252343083.html

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  3. It has always baffled med how some people don't like the idea of donating their organs after they're dead. Like, what do they think the alternative look like? Even if they, as some people seem to do, imagine themselves as somehow being able to experience and have feelings about what happens to their bodies after death, surely being partially revived as part of someone else must be better than 100% of you literally rotting?

    ReplyDelete

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