In Israel, doctors restored the sight of a blind woman by transplanting a tooth into her eye

For the first time in Israel, a rare and complex operation was performed at the Beilinson Hospital - a fragment of her own tooth was implanted into the eye of a woman who had lost her sight due to a corneal disease.

Photo: press service of the Beilinson clinic

As a result, she regained her ability to see, writes the publication “NEWS".

All stages of the operation were carried out by Israeli doctors, but since they performed it for the first time, specialists in the field of ophthalmology and maxillofacial surgery from the Swiss clinic, where this method is practiced, flew in to help.

This method is called osteo-donor prosthetics (OOKP), the procedure consists of several stages and includes two surgical operations, each of which takes about 8 hours. At the first stage of the operation, a healthy tooth is removed to the patient and a plate is made from it. A hole is made in the plate, into which an artificial lens or cylinder is inserted, and then the structure is implanted under the patient's skin for a period from 2 to 4 months. At the second stage, this complex is implanted into the patient's eye.

Such operations are done in just a few clinics in the world.

“This operation is intended for completely blind patients with severe corneal diseases who, for one reason or another, cannot receive a transplant from a donor,” explained Dr. Eitan Livni, an ophthalmologist who performed the operation.

He added that "this is a very long, complicated and dangerous process, but in most cases the results are amazing."

Photo: press service of the Beilinson clinic

Tzipi Balili, the patient of Dr. Livni, suffered from a severe corneal disease, which deprived her of sight. Despite the complexity and danger of the procedure, she decided to trust the doctors. At the first stage, the tooth was removed together with the root and a plate was made from it according to the size of the eye. Then a hole with a diameter of 3 mm was drilled in it and an artificial cornea was inserted into it.

Doctors implanted the resulting “dental cornea” into the woman’s cheek, in the area under the eyelid, so that the body would build new blood vessels that would supply her with blood. The advantage of using dental tissue is that the body does not identify the “dental cornea” as a foreign body, and rejection does not occur.

Three months later, doctors removed the “dental cornea” along with the vessels from the patient’s cheek, cleaned the damaged eye, removing some intraocular structures, and transplanted the resulting structure into the orbit.

After some time, the patient began to see again.

Photo: press service of the Beilinson clinic

After the final implantation of the implant, the patient can use a scleral lens for cosmetic purposes, which looks like a normal eye with a pupil and iris surrounded by a white sclera.

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