Three successful corneal graft operations were conducted yesterday at the Georgetown Public Hospital, and were the first of their kind in Guyana.
The surgeries, Deep Anterior Lamellar Keratoplasty (DALK), were conducted by a visiting ophthalmologist who is an anterior segment specialist from Moorefield Hospital in the United Kingdom, according to Dr George Norton, head of the Ophthalmology Department at the hospital.
The surgery allows persons with “irreversible blindness” a chance to see again. Dr Norton explained that trauma to the eye ends in corneal infection which results in blindness. DALK “consists of removing damaged cornea and replacing it with a donor tissue from a cadaver or a corpse.”
Dr Norton said that in the surgeries that were done “all of the cornea was not removed, only the damaged part was removed and replaced.” The donor tissues were brought from England by the specialist.
The three persons who underwent surgery were selected from about 20 persons who the hospital had selected for screening.
Meanwhile, Dr Norton is optimistic that such operations are possible here in Guyana but “the only thing stopping such procedures are instruments and materials with some on-hand training.”
The DALK surgery, he explained, was done free of cost. In the UK it costs some £9,000 and US$15,000 in the United States, he noted.
