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Late Kannada star Puneeth Rajkumar donated his eyes, which have helped 4 people gain vision

Doctors say the latest technology in microsurgery has made it possible to slice the different parts of the cornea with microscopic precision to help multiple patients.

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New Delhi: Kannada superstar Puneeth Rajkumar’s death last week left fans devastated, but the late actor’s eye donation has given the gift of sight to four people, and may help many others regain their vision in the future.

According to doctors at Narayana Nethralaya in Bengaluru, the latest technology in microsurgery made it possible to provide vision to four people on the same day. All patients were from Karnataka.

Earlier, doctors would take out the 0.5-mm-thick cornea from the donor’s eye. The entire cornea from one eye would be transplanted into one visually impaired person’s eye, allowing them to regain vision in at least one eye. While the nature of vision impairments differ, until recently, it was not possible to further dissect the cornea for precise transplantation.

However, according to Dr K. Bhujang Shetty, chairman and managing director of Narayana Nethralaya, this has now changed. Shetty said the “latest technology has made it possible to slice the different parts of the cornea with microscopic precision”.

This means that different slices of the cornea can be donated to multiple people, depending on the nature of their visual impairment.

Sliced into three parts

In the case of Puneeth Rajkumar’s eye donation, each cornea was sliced into three parts, Shetty told ThePrint.

The front part of the cornea — the corneal button — went to two young patients suffering from keratoconus and corneal dystrophy, respectively. Keratoconus is an eye disease that affects the structure of the cornea, resulting in loss of vision. Corneal dystrophy is a progressive eye disorder in which abnormal material often accumulates in the clear outer layer of the eye. This was done through a process known as Deep Anterior Lamellar Keratoplasty.

Apart from this, the limbus — a tissue that connects the cornea with the sclera, the white layer of the eye that covers most of the outside of the eyeball — was transplanted to two patients with corneal endothelial decompensation, a disorder that affects the ‘back’ of the cornea.

This was done using a procedure called Descemet’s Stripping Endothelial Keratoplasty (DSEK).

A flowchart of how one donated eye can restore vision in many patients | Image courtesy Narayana Nethralaya

The team was also able to separate the limbal stem cells, also known as corneal epithelial stem cells, located in the bottom of the limbus.

These cells can later be cultured in the lab for treating people who have suffered from eye injuries that may involve acid burns or burns from firecrackers, Shetty said.

He added that although slicing the cornea has become feasible with the latest technologies in microsurgery, the major challenge is finding the right patients in time to receive these donations.

(Edited by Neha Mahajan)


Also read: ‘Tough call but felt right’ — Delhi couple watched their 20-month-old die, & then save 5 lives


 

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