Sharron Thornton knows exactly what she wants to do when she gets back home to Smithdale, Miss., pop. 2,034, in a week or two: ``Play cards. Watch TV. Play with my grandbabies. I have seven new grandbabies since I was able to see.''
For nine years Thornton, who is 60, could see only shadows. But over the Labor Day weekend, when doctors at Miami's Bascom Palmer Eye Institute removed the bandages from her eye, she could see their faces.
She regained her vision following a rare procedure -- completed in several steps over six months -- in which surgeons removed one of her teeth, drilled a hole in it, inserted a plastic lens into the hole and implanted the tooth-lens combination into her eye. It's the first such operation in the United States, they said.
Thornton now has 20/70 vision, and can recognize faces and read a newspaper with a magnifying glass. She should get better vision once she is fully healed and fitted with glasses, doctors say.
Thornton, whose friends call her Kay, can't wait to get back to her family: ``I love to fish. My son wants to take me fishing. I want to get back in the kitchen cooking.''
Thornton lost her vision nine years ago to Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, a severe allergic reaction to medication that blistered and scarred her cornea, the dome-shaped part of the eye that covers the iris and pupil. She wasn't a candidate for a corneal transplant or an artificial plastic lens because the eye was too badly damaged, said Dr. Victor Perez, lead surgeon in the operation and cornea specialist at Bascom Palmer, where the procedure was performed.
A stem cell procedure attempted six years ago at Bascom Palmer also failed.
It was a dark time, Thornton told reporters at a Wednesday news conference. She told them to appreciate the vision they have: ``I want you to go home and take a week off and just close your eyes and walk around your house and pretend you're blind,'' she said, sighing. ``When you get your sight back, it's amazing.''
About a year ago, Thornton was referred to Perez, who also is an associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Miami Miller Medical School, for what he calls a ``procedure of last resort.'' He had recently trained in Rome under Italian ophthalmologist Giancarlo Falcinelli, who had developed a modified version of the tooth-lens procedure invented by another Italian doctor, Benedeteo Strampelli.
Strampelli developed the procedure in 1963, but it didn't catch on for decades because of serious complications, at one point including the tooth-lens combination falling out of a patient's eye. But with Falcinelli's modification, the procedure is spreading in Europe and Japan, and, now, in the United States. In Ireland, a worker's sight was restored after his cornea was destroyed by red-hot liquid aluminum in an explosion at a recycling plant.
``We're excited. We believe a lot of patients can benefit from this,'' said Perez, who estimated there are 200 or more patients in the U.S. who can be helped by the surgery.
A tooth is used, Perez said, because it provides a stable, living platform of tooth, bone and cartilage that can remain alive, get nutrition from the eye and grow into a single piece with the cornea.
Thornton says she was shocked when Perez told her what he wanted to do: ``Who in the world would take a tooth out of your mouth and put it in your eye?'' she asked.
The multistage procedure began in March when Dr. Yoh Sawatari, a dental surgeon at the University of Miami Medical School, extracted the tooth -- coincidentally, it was Thornton's eyetooth, also called the canine tooth -- shaved it flat horizontally, drilled a hole in it and inserted an acrylic lens.
He implanted the tooth/lens prosthesis under the skin inside her cheek, intending to leave it there for three months so the combination could heal together.
Unfortunately, she developed a sinus infection, so he had to remove it and re-implant it under a pouch of skin in her upper chest.
Meanwhile, an eye surgeon removed scar tissue lining her damaged cornea.
A month later, surgeons removed a patch of skin from the inside of her cheek and laid it over her cornea to replace the moist tissue lost to the disease.
Two months after that, Perez extracted the tooth-lens combination from her chest, cut a flap out of the skin over the center of her cornea, cut a hole down into the eye and inserted the tooth-lens. He sewed the flap shut to hold in the tooth-lens and cut a tiny hole so the lens can protrude a couple of millimeters out of the eye.
On Labor Day weekend, bandages were removed and Thornton was able to recognize faces within two hours. A couple of days later she asked her Smithdale friend and caretaker, Rick Brister, to drive her around Miami to see the sights.
``The white clouds were absolutely beautiful,'' she said. ``The blue sky, the yellows. There's just no way to describe it to y'all.''
Thornton now looks forward to seeing her three grown children and nine grandchildren, only two of whom she had seen before losing her vision.
``From now on I will take every day as precious,'' she said.
Perez believes her prognosis is good.
``If there isn't any infection, I'm optimistic we can preserve at least 20/70 vision for the next 10 years.''
For now, he won't try to fix Thornton's other eye.
``We're keeping it as a spare tire. If something goes wrong with the first eye, we can do the other. That way she will always have a chance at vision -- as long as she takes care of her teeth.'' [rc]
Copyright 2009 Miami Herald Media Co
September 17, 2009
USA: Lens inserted in tooth lets woman regain sight
.
MIAMI, Florida / The Miami Herald / Living / September 17, 2009
From left to right, Yoh Sawatari, DDS, and Rick Brister look on as Kay Thornton who received Modified Osteo-Odonto-Keratoprosthesis surgery to restore her eyesight smiles admiringly at Victor L. Perez, MD who performed the surgery at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute.
Patrick Farrel / Miami Herald Staff
By Fred Tasker, The Miami Herald
Sharron Thornton knows exactly what she wants to do when she gets back home to Smithdale, Miss., pop. 2,034, in a week or two: ``Play cards. Watch TV. Play with my grandbabies. I have seven new grandbabies since I was able to see.''
For nine years Thornton, who is 60, could see only shadows. But over the Labor Day weekend, when doctors at Miami's Bascom Palmer Eye Institute removed the bandages from her eye, she could see their faces.
She regained her vision following a rare procedure -- completed in several steps over six months -- in which surgeons removed one of her teeth, drilled a hole in it, inserted a plastic lens into the hole and implanted the tooth-lens combination into her eye. It's the first such operation in the United States, they said.
Thornton now has 20/70 vision, and can recognize faces and read a newspaper with a magnifying glass. She should get better vision once she is fully healed and fitted with glasses, doctors say.
Thornton, whose friends call her Kay, can't wait to get back to her family: ``I love to fish. My son wants to take me fishing. I want to get back in the kitchen cooking.''
Thornton lost her vision nine years ago to Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, a severe allergic reaction to medication that blistered and scarred her cornea, the dome-shaped part of the eye that covers the iris and pupil. She wasn't a candidate for a corneal transplant or an artificial plastic lens because the eye was too badly damaged, said Dr. Victor Perez, lead surgeon in the operation and cornea specialist at Bascom Palmer, where the procedure was performed.
A stem cell procedure attempted six years ago at Bascom Palmer also failed.
It was a dark time, Thornton told reporters at a Wednesday news conference. She told them to appreciate the vision they have: ``I want you to go home and take a week off and just close your eyes and walk around your house and pretend you're blind,'' she said, sighing. ``When you get your sight back, it's amazing.''
About a year ago, Thornton was referred to Perez, who also is an associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Miami Miller Medical School, for what he calls a ``procedure of last resort.'' He had recently trained in Rome under Italian ophthalmologist Giancarlo Falcinelli, who had developed a modified version of the tooth-lens procedure invented by another Italian doctor, Benedeteo Strampelli.
Strampelli developed the procedure in 1963, but it didn't catch on for decades because of serious complications, at one point including the tooth-lens combination falling out of a patient's eye. But with Falcinelli's modification, the procedure is spreading in Europe and Japan, and, now, in the United States. In Ireland, a worker's sight was restored after his cornea was destroyed by red-hot liquid aluminum in an explosion at a recycling plant.
``We're excited. We believe a lot of patients can benefit from this,'' said Perez, who estimated there are 200 or more patients in the U.S. who can be helped by the surgery.
A tooth is used, Perez said, because it provides a stable, living platform of tooth, bone and cartilage that can remain alive, get nutrition from the eye and grow into a single piece with the cornea.
Thornton says she was shocked when Perez told her what he wanted to do: ``Who in the world would take a tooth out of your mouth and put it in your eye?'' she asked.
The multistage procedure began in March when Dr. Yoh Sawatari, a dental surgeon at the University of Miami Medical School, extracted the tooth -- coincidentally, it was Thornton's eyetooth, also called the canine tooth -- shaved it flat horizontally, drilled a hole in it and inserted an acrylic lens.
He implanted the tooth/lens prosthesis under the skin inside her cheek, intending to leave it there for three months so the combination could heal together.
Unfortunately, she developed a sinus infection, so he had to remove it and re-implant it under a pouch of skin in her upper chest.
Meanwhile, an eye surgeon removed scar tissue lining her damaged cornea.
A month later, surgeons removed a patch of skin from the inside of her cheek and laid it over her cornea to replace the moist tissue lost to the disease.
Two months after that, Perez extracted the tooth-lens combination from her chest, cut a flap out of the skin over the center of her cornea, cut a hole down into the eye and inserted the tooth-lens. He sewed the flap shut to hold in the tooth-lens and cut a tiny hole so the lens can protrude a couple of millimeters out of the eye.
On Labor Day weekend, bandages were removed and Thornton was able to recognize faces within two hours. A couple of days later she asked her Smithdale friend and caretaker, Rick Brister, to drive her around Miami to see the sights.
``The white clouds were absolutely beautiful,'' she said. ``The blue sky, the yellows. There's just no way to describe it to y'all.''
Thornton now looks forward to seeing her three grown children and nine grandchildren, only two of whom she had seen before losing her vision.
``From now on I will take every day as precious,'' she said.
Perez believes her prognosis is good.
``If there isn't any infection, I'm optimistic we can preserve at least 20/70 vision for the next 10 years.''
For now, he won't try to fix Thornton's other eye.
``We're keeping it as a spare tire. If something goes wrong with the first eye, we can do the other. That way she will always have a chance at vision -- as long as she takes care of her teeth.'' [rc]
Copyright 2009 Miami Herald Media Co
Sharron Thornton knows exactly what she wants to do when she gets back home to Smithdale, Miss., pop. 2,034, in a week or two: ``Play cards. Watch TV. Play with my grandbabies. I have seven new grandbabies since I was able to see.''
For nine years Thornton, who is 60, could see only shadows. But over the Labor Day weekend, when doctors at Miami's Bascom Palmer Eye Institute removed the bandages from her eye, she could see their faces.
She regained her vision following a rare procedure -- completed in several steps over six months -- in which surgeons removed one of her teeth, drilled a hole in it, inserted a plastic lens into the hole and implanted the tooth-lens combination into her eye. It's the first such operation in the United States, they said.
Thornton now has 20/70 vision, and can recognize faces and read a newspaper with a magnifying glass. She should get better vision once she is fully healed and fitted with glasses, doctors say.
Thornton, whose friends call her Kay, can't wait to get back to her family: ``I love to fish. My son wants to take me fishing. I want to get back in the kitchen cooking.''
Thornton lost her vision nine years ago to Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, a severe allergic reaction to medication that blistered and scarred her cornea, the dome-shaped part of the eye that covers the iris and pupil. She wasn't a candidate for a corneal transplant or an artificial plastic lens because the eye was too badly damaged, said Dr. Victor Perez, lead surgeon in the operation and cornea specialist at Bascom Palmer, where the procedure was performed.
A stem cell procedure attempted six years ago at Bascom Palmer also failed.
It was a dark time, Thornton told reporters at a Wednesday news conference. She told them to appreciate the vision they have: ``I want you to go home and take a week off and just close your eyes and walk around your house and pretend you're blind,'' she said, sighing. ``When you get your sight back, it's amazing.''
About a year ago, Thornton was referred to Perez, who also is an associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Miami Miller Medical School, for what he calls a ``procedure of last resort.'' He had recently trained in Rome under Italian ophthalmologist Giancarlo Falcinelli, who had developed a modified version of the tooth-lens procedure invented by another Italian doctor, Benedeteo Strampelli.
Strampelli developed the procedure in 1963, but it didn't catch on for decades because of serious complications, at one point including the tooth-lens combination falling out of a patient's eye. But with Falcinelli's modification, the procedure is spreading in Europe and Japan, and, now, in the United States. In Ireland, a worker's sight was restored after his cornea was destroyed by red-hot liquid aluminum in an explosion at a recycling plant.
``We're excited. We believe a lot of patients can benefit from this,'' said Perez, who estimated there are 200 or more patients in the U.S. who can be helped by the surgery.
A tooth is used, Perez said, because it provides a stable, living platform of tooth, bone and cartilage that can remain alive, get nutrition from the eye and grow into a single piece with the cornea.
Thornton says she was shocked when Perez told her what he wanted to do: ``Who in the world would take a tooth out of your mouth and put it in your eye?'' she asked.
The multistage procedure began in March when Dr. Yoh Sawatari, a dental surgeon at the University of Miami Medical School, extracted the tooth -- coincidentally, it was Thornton's eyetooth, also called the canine tooth -- shaved it flat horizontally, drilled a hole in it and inserted an acrylic lens.
He implanted the tooth/lens prosthesis under the skin inside her cheek, intending to leave it there for three months so the combination could heal together.
Unfortunately, she developed a sinus infection, so he had to remove it and re-implant it under a pouch of skin in her upper chest.
Meanwhile, an eye surgeon removed scar tissue lining her damaged cornea.
A month later, surgeons removed a patch of skin from the inside of her cheek and laid it over her cornea to replace the moist tissue lost to the disease.
Two months after that, Perez extracted the tooth-lens combination from her chest, cut a flap out of the skin over the center of her cornea, cut a hole down into the eye and inserted the tooth-lens. He sewed the flap shut to hold in the tooth-lens and cut a tiny hole so the lens can protrude a couple of millimeters out of the eye.
On Labor Day weekend, bandages were removed and Thornton was able to recognize faces within two hours. A couple of days later she asked her Smithdale friend and caretaker, Rick Brister, to drive her around Miami to see the sights.
``The white clouds were absolutely beautiful,'' she said. ``The blue sky, the yellows. There's just no way to describe it to y'all.''
Thornton now looks forward to seeing her three grown children and nine grandchildren, only two of whom she had seen before losing her vision.
``From now on I will take every day as precious,'' she said.
Perez believes her prognosis is good.
``If there isn't any infection, I'm optimistic we can preserve at least 20/70 vision for the next 10 years.''
For now, he won't try to fix Thornton's other eye.
``We're keeping it as a spare tire. If something goes wrong with the first eye, we can do the other. That way she will always have a chance at vision -- as long as she takes care of her teeth.'' [rc]
Copyright 2009 Miami Herald Media Co
