"Bob McNichol, an Irishman blinded by an explosion two years ago, has had his sight restored after doctors inserted his son's tooth in his eye, he said on Wednesday," reports NPR.
AFP writs that "After doctors in Ireland said there was nothing more they could do, McNichol heard about a miracle operation called Osteo-Odonto-Keratoprosthesis (OOKP) being performed by Dr Christopher Liu at the Sussex Eye Hospital in Brighton in England."
Two operations lasted 15 hours, but results are wonderful.
The technique, pioneered in Italy in the 1960s, involves creating a support for an artificial cornea from the patient's own tooth and the surrounding bone.
The procedure used on McNichol involved his son Robert, 23, donating a tooth, its root and part of the jaw.
McNichol's right eye socket was rebuilt, part of the tooth inserted and a lens inserted in a hole drilled in the tooth, repots AFP
MSN Encarta's definition of Osteo-Odonto-Keratoprosthesis
implanted corneal lens: a plastic lens cemented into a section of decalcified tooth that is then stitched into an opening cut in a totally opaque cornea to restore vision. The lens may be implanted after normal corneal grafting has failed.
