Miracle eye surgery to bring patients sight back

Once the frame is finished, doctors install a tiny plastic telescopic lens into the dentine case before temporarily sewing the implant into the side of a patient’s cheek, where it remains for a few months as new tissue grows around it. Another surgery removes the scar tissue from the patient’s eye and replaces it with healthy tissue also harvested from a cheek. In a final procedure, doctors sew the implant into the eye socket under the cheek tissue transplant, where the lens helps partially restore sight. Previous surveys indicate many patients’ vision improves enough to allow them to drive cars.

Tooth-in-eye surgery is only applicable for specific instances of severe corneal blindness, when trauma only damages the front surface of an eye and not its retina and optic nerves. This was the case for Brent Chapman, one of the three surgical patients profiled by the CBC program As It Happens last week. Chapman, a massage therapist from North Vancouver, lost his vision at age 13 after over-the-counter pain medication triggered a rare auto-immune reaction called Stevens-Johnson syndrome that resulted in a weekslong coma and severe burns across his body and eyes. Chapman, now 33, has since undergone roughly 50 surgeries including 10 corneal implants, but none managed to permanently restore his vision.

March 8, 2025 | 5:10 am