A Tooth Restores a Woman's Eyesight

Sharron Thornton lost her sight in the year 2000 when she aquired Steven-Johnson syndrome. The medication she was taking for this disease is the direct cause of her loss of vision. Steven-Johnson syndrome is an extremely rare disorder in which "skin and mucous membranes react severely to a medication or infection." This causes a rash to spread and blister and eventually cause the top layer of skin to die. Not only did this disease cause her to loose her vision, but also her hair, nails, and almost all of her skin. Everything came back except for her vision.





Her eye's in fact remained healthy, it was just massive amounts of corneal scarring blocked the vision. Since her eyes were not "wet and healthy," it also cause skin to grow completely covering the eyes. The fact that her eyes remained healthy allowed her to have this procedure that had never been done in this country.





Dr. Victor Perez, the associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Miami Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, was the leader of the surgical team that worked on Thornton. The procedure was done by removing a healthy tooth and part of the jawbone. There is typically a jawbone implant but this caused Johnson to get a sinus infection so it was removed. The tooth and jawbone are sculpted into the right form and then have holes drilled into them to hold a prosthetic lens. This unit was implanted into Johnson's chest for a whole month in order to let the tooth and lens bond together. After the month had concluded, the unit was then implanted into the eye.





This procedure has only been done about 600 times worldwide and has very strict criteria that has to be met for a patient to qualify. The patient must have end-stage ocular surface disease, and be able to see light and the direction is coming from. The patient must also have healthy teeth.





Johnson had almost lost hope before she qualified for this procedure. A stem cell procedure didn't work and she didn't qualify for a cornea transplant. Before this procedure Johnson had lost all hope of ever seeing again and had even contemplated suicide. This procedure was her last chance and she was extremely happy that the procedure worked. The procedure allows her to have 20/70 vision without corrective lenses and that's plenty fine for her.





Johnson is ecstatic that she had this procedure, but not all doctors are so fond of it. Dr. Ivan Schwab with the American Academy of Ophthalmology believes that the procedure is far too difficult and that there are other options. This difficult procedure not only requires an expert team of surgeons but also a team of dentists and ophthalmologists.

This topic caught my eye just because of the fact that it was so bizzare. Not only the condition (having skin completely covering the eye) caught my interest, but the way the procedure was carried out was also very interesting. I have pretty bad eyesight so I guess that would make me more sensitive to the topic at hand but honestly I only picked this article because it was so insane.

Link:http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/16/tooth.eye.vision/index.html





Charles Brown


VTPP 434-502