Artificial corneas to be produced here next year
Artificial corneas to be produced here next year
JAKARTA (JP): The Lions Eye Institute of Perth, Australia, the
Jakarta Eye Center and the University of Indonesia's School of
Medicine plan to conduct joint research here into designing
highly sophisticated artificial corneas beginning next year.
Professor Ian Contable of the Perth institute said on Saturday
during a seminar to mark the 15th anniversary of the Jakarta Eye
Center that the memorandum of understanding for the research had
been signed by the three parties a day earlier.
Contable gave no details on the plan but said if the research
to design high-quality artificial corneas was a success it would
be a milestone in the industry and help curb problems suffered by
recipients of artificial corneas around the globe.
Many participants in the seminar, Recent Advances in
Ophthalmic Surgery, at the President Hotel predicted the new
artificial corneas could be cheaper for patients.
"The (artificial) corneas currently available are rigid. A few
months after the transplant, they fall out because the tissue
around them goes soft and melts," Contable said.
"So many eyes have been lost because of such operations."
He said the Lions Eye Institute already had designed "soft"
artificial corneas, which have been undergoing preclinical
laboratory tests for the past four years.
"This (new cornea) does not cause the tissue around the cornea
to erode and melt," Contable said.
He said his institute currently was required to carry out at
least 10 operations with the "soft corneas" and then wait a year
for an independent committee of doctors to review the results of
the operations.
"If they (results) aren't good enough, we would need to make
improvements. If they work, we'll perform 50 more (similar
operations)," Contable said.
In cornea transplants, the damaged corneas are first removed
from a patient's eyes. Then the artificial corneas, taken from a
corpse and shaped to fit into the hollows of the patient's eyes,
are transplanted.
According to Contable, his institute's laboratories already
had constructed a new artificial cornea which was officially
tested in May last year.
Separately, Dr. Darmayanti Siswoyo, a specialist in
reconstructive eye surgery here, said that eye reconstruction
surgery in Indonesia had become more expensive since the economic
crisis hit.
"For example, each pack of sutures used in a surgery, both for
the inner and outer part of the eye, cost about Rp 100,000 before
the crisis hit in June 1997," said Darmayanti, who has practiced
ophthalmology here since 1987.
Now, the price of the sutures is some Rp 270,000, she added.
Darmayanti also said that many ophthalmologists here no longer
used the imported titanium screws from the United States and
Australia because of the depreciation of the rupiah.
"We now use steel wires, which are much cheaper," she said.
A three to six-hour operation on a fractured orbital eye bone,
for example, would cost some Rp 5 million at a private hospital
and about Rp 1 million in a state-run hospital.
The two-day seminar, which ended on Sunday, was attended by
236 ophthalmologists from across Indonesia and from three other
countries. Participants at the seminar discussed several new
operations for eye diseases and abnormal structures or functions
of the eye.
Many participants detailed their latest research, including
research dealing with retinal detachments, cataracts and
artificial corneas.
Dr. Sjakon G. Tahija, who has practiced ophthalmology since
1988, revealed his success with Pneumatic-Retinopexy, an
operation where a special gas is injected into the eye with a
very fine needle.
In at least 23 operations he personally performed over the
last four years, the operations had proven to grant "excellent
vision" to patients.
"The Pneumatic-Retinopexy operation takes about 15 minutes and
is inexpensive," Sjakon said.
"There's very little discomfort after the operation. And
there's no bruising or change in eye shape. Patient can go back
to work a day after the operation." (ylt)