What is the role of a cornea?
Cornea is a clear tissue that covers and protects the front part of your eyes. So when light passes through your eyes, it first enters the cornea, then pupil and then the lens. This is the reason why cornea must remain clear and devoid of any infections.
However, there exist numerous reasons that may affect the cornea:
- Keraoconus: It is a degenerative state which makes the cornea very thin.
- Corneal conditions inherited from family like Lattice dystrophy, Fuchs’ dystrophy etc.
- Scarring of cornea from infection.
Corneal Transplant: This is where the ISR eye bank comes into sight. The International Sight Restoration is a certified US based eye bank that donates corneas to various people. This non profitable organization donates approximately 40,000 corneas to almost 50 countries on an annual basis. The type of corneal transplant however depends on the type of defect you have in the cornea. Your surgeon will suggest you with the appropriate corneal transport mechanism.
Types of Corneal Transplants The cornea has five layers. It is not necessary to transfer all layers during the corneal transplant. It highly depends on the amount of damage occurred to the cornea.
- Lamellar corneal transplant. During this process, the surgeon replaces only a specific part of layers of cornea with the one donated by the donor.
- Penetrating corneal transplant. This procedure involves transplantation of all the layers of cornea by the donor.
Lamellar transplants are said to
be more beneficial than penetrating transplants if the disease is limited to only a particular portion of cornea.
Recent success rates show that the new corneas last long, and also the penetrating corneal transplant is considered to be more durable than the Lamellar transplant. ISR is a pioneer in the distribution ocular tissues and corneas and assure the best quality of the parts.
International Sight 