A surgical procedure to restore the power of sight to blind patients using their teeth is slowly gaining traction around the world, with Canada opening its first clinic for this treatment.
It's called Osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis (OOKP), and it's actually not all that new. In fact, it was pioneered more than 60 years ago in Italy by ophthalmic surgeon Benedetto Strampelli. This procedure has been carried out dozens of times in a handful of countries over the last few decades, and Canada now has three patients who've undergone the first part of their two-stage OOKP surgery.
The first of these patients is 74-year-old Gail Lane, who lost her sight a decade prior. Her surgery was performed by Dr. Greg Moloney, an ophthalmologist at Providence Health Care in Vancouver who's previously carried out the tooth-in-eye procedure on seven patients in his home country of Australia.
Here's how it works: First, the patient's canine tooth (also known as the eyetooth, due to its position directly under the eye) is extracted and shaped into a rectangle, and a hole is drilled into it to fit a plastic optical lens. Next, this tooth-lens is surgically embedded into the patient's cheek for about three months, during which time a layer of tissue grows around it.
In addition, a patch of skin is taken from inside the patient's cheek, and sewn onto the eye beneath the eyelid. When the tooth composite with its layer of tissue is ready, this flap of skin sewn on the eye is lifted, the damaged iris and lens are removed, and the tooth composite is inserted.
Finally, the flap of skin will be laid back over the eye to keep the tooth in place, with a hole cut in the flap to let light into the lens.
Patients typically start to regain vision a month after the surgery is complete.
Watch this animation below for an overview of the procedure.
It's worth noting that OOKP is only suitable for certain conditions causing blindness. The ideal candidates for this surgery are people with damaged corneas but otherwise healthy eyes, with the retina and optic nerve at the back of their eye. In Gail Lane's case, she lost her sight due to scarring on her eyes from Stevens-Johnson syndrome – a rare skin disorder that resulted from a severe reaction to prescription drugs.
OOKP surgeries have been found to be effective for decades after the procedures were completed, and they're available in a small number of facilities in Australia, the UK, Japan, Germany, and India. From what I know about surgical methods that use one part of the body to help treat another, such as skin and tissue grafts for fixing burns and reconstructing breasts after mastectomies, this might be the most advanced one on the list. Let me know in the comments if there are other such complex procedures worth looking into.
Sources: Smithsonian Magazine, Vancouver Sun
