The operation was performed in Turin, Italy, on an 83-year-old patient. “I started to see the outline of my fingers and hand, it was like I was born once more,” he said.
An 83-year-old patient, who was blind, regained his vision following an autotransplant of the eye that was performed for the first time in the world at the Molinette hospital in Turin, Italy, as reported this Friday.
The man had lost sight first of one eye and then the other, affected by two different pathologies, and he saw once more thanks to a surgical intervention that lasted four hours and that allowed the reconstruction of the other eye with a part of the firstthe ANSA agency specified.
“I sincerely thank the doctors for their courage,” said Gabriella Bosco, the daughter of the man from Castiglione Torinese.
The patient’s daughter thanked the doctors for “the passion and professionalism” they gave them, and emphasized that in the future “this event will become normal and not just an exciting and unique episode.”
The medical team tested an innovative intervention modality with a third of the left eye, the first to lose functionality, thirty years ago, due to irreversible retinal blindness.
Thanks to this eye, he reconstructed the right one, which had progressively lost vision due to a rare chronic disease, ocular pseudo pemphigoid, which had destroyed the cornea and ocular surface.
The surgery was performed by Professor Michele Reibaldi, Director of the University Clinic of Ophthalmology at the Molinette de la Citta della Salute hospital in Turin, a retinal surgeon, and Professor Vincenzo Sarnicola, President of the Italian Cornea and Ocular Surface Society and advisor. from the directory of the Italian Society of Ophthalmological Sciences.
According to the doctors, the operation consisted “in taking a sample from the left eye, unrecoverable from a functional point of view, but with the cornea and ocular surface in good clinical condition, the entire cornea and two millimeters of sclera, in one piece.” .
Finally, the left eye was reconstructed, only for aesthetic purposes, with donor tissue, ANSA explained.
Two weeks following the operation, the patient he saw once more with his right eye, recognized people and objects and was able to move autonomously.
“When I woke up and began to see the outline of my fingers and hand, it was like being born once more“said the patient.
“We hope for lasting success because the right eye has been reconstructed with the patient’s own eyes, so it is potentially spared from the rejection problems that transplant patients can experience,” the doctors noted.
The president of the Region, Alberto Cirio, asserted that “miracles have nothing to do with it, but it was thanks to the extraordinary competence of our doctors and health workers who confirmed the excellence of our medical care.”
With information from ANSA
DB