Eye donation is one of the organ donations that can be made after death and which, thanks to a corneal transplant, can allow a visually impaired person to regain sight.
- The success rate of such an operation is very high and is between 95 and 98%.
- Donation can be done at any age, and even a visually impaired person can donate their eyes.
- On average, only half of the corneas removed are usable for a transplant.
This is an example that was quickly followed. In India, comedian Puneeth Rajkumarn, who died of a heart attack last month aged 46, donated his eyes. His cornea could restore sight to four people. The revelation of this act had fan circles rushing into eye banks to follow his lead. “There is a real awareness”, rejoiced Rekha Gyanchand, medical director in the international eye bank Lions, to AFP.
For Puneeth Rajkumarn, donating her eyes is a family tradition
Eye donation is one of the organ donations that can be made after death. It is more precisely a corneal transplant, the thin membrane on the surface of the eye, an operation whose success rate is very high and is between 95 and 98%. The intervention makes it possible to fight against certain forms of blindness due to the opacification of the cornea or to hereditary malformations. Donation can be done at any age, and even a visually impaired person can donate their eyes.
To carry out this operation, the consent of the donor must first be obtained before the latter dies. For Puneeth Rajkumarn, giving his eyes is a logical next step. “His family has a tradition of giving their eyes”, thus explained to AFP, doctor Bhujang Shetty, general manager of the Narayana Netralaya hospital which collected the gift of the deceased. He followed the example of his doctor father in 2006 and his mother in 2017 who donated their eyes after their respective deaths, according to the doctor.
Half of the donations can be used
Then, once the sample has been taken and if the tissue is of good quality, it is sent to a cornea bank, outside the hospital, where for about three weeks it undergoes control tests. On average, about half of the corneas removed will arrive in the operating room for the transplant. It happens that pathologies ignored by the patient or his family are detected during culturing, or that the sample is damaged by an infection. For the recipient, the risk of rejection is less than for a heart or a lung, because the cornea does not contain blood.
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