Posted on 08/02/2004 7:16:05 AM PDT by dead
A rare tooth-in-eye operation has enabled a Thai teenager to see again after six years of blindness, news reports said yesterday.
Luck Pewnual, 19, now reads books and watches football on television after surgeons in Singapore completed a two-part operation implanting parts of a canine tooth into his right eye.
His vision has improved since the second stage was performed in June, well enough for him to legally drive a car.
Several patients from Malaysia, the Philippines and Mauritius in addition to Singaporeans have been lined up for the procedure.
Pewnual's case is believed to be the first carried out in the region, said Singapore'sSunday Times. The first stage has been performed on a Singaporean woman.
Pewnual, who was blind from an allergic reaction, said he was "excited and happy" to be able to see his parents and continue studying.
He would have to return for regular follow-up treatment, doctors said.
Associate Professor Donald Dan, deputy director of the eye centre, described the procedure as a last-ditch possible solution for people who lost their sight when the corneas, the front part of the eye and the eyelids were badly damaged.
The operations were performed at the Singapore National Eye Centre and National Dental Centre, with the first in February.
A canine tooth was extracted with its root and part of the jaw, then fashioned into a cube and a hole drilled into the centre, explained Dr Andrew Tay at the dental centre.
A tiny clear plastic cylinder was fitted into the hole to channel light to the retina.
The tooth structure was then inserted into the cheek to grow a new blood supply. The damaged layers of the eyes were scraped off and the inner mucosal lining of the cheek transplanted onto the surface of the eye.
In the second stage, the tooth cube was removed from the cheek and reshaped. The cheek mucosal lining was opened, a hole was cut in the cornea and the cube inserted with the lining put back in place.
The technique was pioneered in Italy and refined in Britain in the last three years.
DPA
Has Kerry gotten that tooth fixed, I haven't noticed it in recent pictures? Also you never get to see how lop-sided his face is in the pictures. They just never show him straight on.
I guess that gives new meaning to the term "EYE-TOOTH"......
I've heard of cutting eyeteeth, but this is ridiculous.
gmta <|:)~
that pic has to be photoshopped.
What? You've got to be kidding me? Someone would take a tooth from a defense dog? Where's PETA? Are they picketing the doctor who performed this surgery?
/sarcasm off
Yeah, you're probably right. No one in the public eye would go around with that snaggle tooth.
No, no, no, it is "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" -- NOT "a tooth for an eye"! Stupid cliches'!
One eye looks right, the other one looks left. He seems to think the same way. I wonder which eye is the glass one?
Actually, I thought that animal to human transplants were discouraged because of the risk of cross-species virii arising. Guess this dog's tooth must have been "sterilized" somehow.
It's the patient's canine tooth, not a dog's.
MAN! I've seen better faces on old Iodine bottles!!
Those screwed up teeth just blinded me!
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