Advanced Corneal Transplant surgery at rural doorstep in Telangana

Bhosle Gopal Rao Patil Eye Centre conducted its first corneal transplantation successfully. The surgical team of LVPEI’s Tej Kohli Cornea Institute carefully transported the corneal tissue from their Ramayamma International Eye Bank in Hyderabad, and performed the surgery in Mudhole.

“Cornea is a transparent structure of the eye similar to a glass dial of a watch. Corneal transplantation or grafting is performed when it becomes white due to any disease, trauma or infection. In this operation, the corneal opacity is removed and replaced with a donor cornea.

This surgery needs expertise and can be done by trained doctors, and therefore, it used to be traditionally restricted to urban hospitals. But now people of Adilabad in Telangana State can undergo this complex surgery at our Mudhole centre itself and need not travel elsewhere,” says Dr Somasheila Murthy, Head of Cornea Service, Tej Kohli Cornea Institute, LVPEI, Hyderabad.

Corneal blindness is a treatable condition; however this surgery is usually restricted to larger urban centres with access to an eye bank. The patient is required to travel several times to the treating centre, resulting in huge cost implications for the individual because even if the surgery were to be performed free of cost, the travel costs may prove to be a prohibitive factor, which a majority of our rural patients can ill afford. By performing this surgery at, literally, the patient’s doorstep, LVPEI has enabled the patient regain vision.

“Post-operative care is equally important and our doctors who manage the secondary centres are well-trained in the post-operative care for eye transplant patients. The patient will be followed-up by our trained ophthalmologist stationed at the secondary centre.

Thus the need for the patient to incur a burden of expense for travel, time and stay, including that of an accompanying person, is eliminated,” says Dr Varsha Rathi, Gullapalli Pratibha Rao International Centre for Advancement of Rural Eye care, LVPEI, Hyderabad.