Chelsea Parris
9/18/09
1:51am
This article is about a 60 year old woman from Mississippi who can now see after being blind for nine years. Earlier this month, surgeons implanted Sharron “Kay” Thornton’s tooth inside her eye, which holds a prosthetic lens in place. It's a procedure called Oseteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis or MOOKP. It took place at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. The procedure has been available at some eye clinics in Europe and Asia but this was the first time a patient has had the procedure done in the U.S. Thornton lost her eyesight in 2000 due to a skin condition known as Stevens-Johnson syndrome. It destroys the cells on the eye’s surface and leads to scarring of the cornea. Doctors implanted Thornton’s canine tooth, which is also known as her “eyetooth.” Just a few hours after the surgery, Thornton recognized faces. Within two weeks, she was reading newsprint with a visual acuity of 20/70. As the scars heal, her sight will continue to improve.
This story is truly amazing. I really don't understand how they figured out that a tooth could help improve eyesight. I wonder if a surgery like this could help people that had been born blind. I never would have thought that someones tooth could help eyesight, it goes to show how advance technology is nowadays. This lady has been given a miracle and I hope that more people are aware that this is possible so that they too have the surgery if need be. My only worry is that since the procedure is so new to the U.S that there might be some type of negative side effect that has not yet been discovered. Overall I thought this article was very fascinating.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,551300,00.html
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