Usually, when a person donates their eyes, it brings light to the lives of two people. However, thanks to a new technology applied at AIIMS New Delhi, darkness is removed from the lives of four to six people using the eyes of a single donor.
This is achieved at the Dr. Rajnath Prasad Centre for Ophthalmology at AIIMS New Delhi. Under this method, doctors treat multiple patients by using different parts of one eye's cornea. This progress is considered highly significant given the acute shortage of corneas in the country.
Dr. Radhika Tandan, head of the RP Centre at AIIMS Delhi, told Aajtak.in about this topic. She explained that the cornea is the outermost transparent layer of the eye through which light passes. If this layer is damaged due to infection, eye disease, or trauma, a person's vision can be lost. In such cases, a corneal transplant is performed, where a healthy cornea from one person's eye is transplanted into another.
Typically, vision is restored in two different people from both eyes of one donor. The new technology allows vision to be restored in 2 to 6 people from one donor. This method is called lamellar corneal transplantation.
Dr. Radhika clarified that not all patients require replacement of the entire cornea. Some patients only have a specific layer of the cornea damaged. In such situations, doctors can use methods like lamellar corneal transplantation. The RP Centre at AIIMS uses this modern technique, which allows treating many patients by using individual parts of the donor's cornea.
The process can be visualized as follows: if one patient needs one part of the cornea and another needs a different part, instead of using the whole cornea from one donor, only the necessary section can be extracted for each patient. The remaining parts can be transplanted to another needy patient. The advantage of this approach is that parts of one donor's cornea can be separated and implanted in the eyes of two or three different patients. This is called single donor, multiple recipients.
Lamellar corneal transplantation differs significantly from standard corneal transplantation. In a standard procedure, all layers of the cornea are replaced with donor tissue, whereas in lamellar transplantation, only the damaged layer is replaced, not the entire cornea.
In India, the problem of blindness caused by corneal damage (corneal blindness) is serious. Corneal transplantation often serves as a good way to restore vision for such patients, but the most critical element is the availability of a donor. The AIIMS National Eye Bank plays a vital role in this process. Over the last 61 years, the National Eye Bank has collected more than 38 thousand corneas and restored vision to over 28 thousand people through corneal transplantation. Now, the possibility of receiving lamellar corneal transplantation services has also been included in this system.
