Setting milestones in cornea transplants

The L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) has become the first one in the world to perform 2,043 cornea transplants in a single year i.e. from April 2016 to March 2017. The feat was celebrated in the city on Tuesday.

Speaking on the occasion Dr Gullapalli N Rao - Founder and Chair, LVPEI, said, “When I came to set up this institute in 1986, virtually everyone here advised me to concentrate on cataract surgeries and that corneal transplant surgeries don't work here.

I am happy that I didn't listen to them and today 30 years later here we are with a world record, having done nearly 24,000 corneal transplants, the highest anywhere in the world.”

“In the past 18 months we have taken corneal transplants to our rural centers at Adilabad, Prakasam, Mahaboobnagar and Nellore. This gives immense confidence to everybody in our country, that we can create history if we set our sight on it,” he said.

Congratulating his team, Dr Rao said, “Organ donation is a major challenge in India, and to achieve this world record, while we are still creating awareness about eye donation, is even more commendable.

This achievement should help raise the confidence that organ donation and transplantation in India can potentially touch record volumes, given a dedicated team approach and strategy.”

“This is an ongoing process in our efforts to create more milestones in the coming years towards our mission of alleviating avoidable blindness in India and the world,” Dr Rao said.