New Hope for Corneal Blindness

(OOKP)or "Tooth-in-eye", originated by Prof Benedetto Strampelli in Italy in 1960s, is a procedure which aims at sight restoration for patients with the most severe type of corneal and ocular surface diseases, for whom other treatments would not be useful. It involves creating a support for an artificial cornea from the patient’s own tooth and the surrounding bone. Prof. Giancarlo Falcinelli of Italy, a student of Prof. Strampelli, has refined and improved the procedure. The results have been encouraging and many patients have been able to maintain their vision since their operations more than 20 years ago.

Because of its complexity, the procedure is at present performed by less than ten centers in the world. The Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences of the Chinese University of Hong Kong has started this procedure in Hong Kong and the Joint Shantou International Eye Center of the Shantou University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (JSIEC) in April 2005, with the help Prof Falcinelli and his son Dr Johnny Falcinelli.

To provide the patient with useful vision, an artificial cornea or "keratoprosthesis" is used. The artificial cornea is made of hard plastic. For the plastic prosthesis to retain in the eye, tissues from the patient’s own body are used. The tooth is ideal because it has a hard part to which the cylinder can be fixed and also it resides in the mouth where it co-exists with soft tissues, as in the eye. Prof. Srinivas Rao said "OOKP is a two-stage procedure. With the refinement and improvement made by Prof. Giancarlo Falcinelli, an overall success rate of 80-90% can be achieved."

http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/medint/ovs/research%20web/ookp-e.pdf