Blind man has sight restored after tooth-in-eye surgery
A 34-year-old Canadian man who has been blind for over two decades can now see out of one eye after undergoing a rare and complex "tooth-in-eye" surgery.
According to PEOPLE, Brent Chapman lost his vision at age 12 due to a severe allergic reaction to ibuprofen.
While playing in a high school basketball tournament, he took the pain relievers and subsequently developed a life-threatening skin condition called Stevens-Johnson syndrome, which ultimately damaged his corneas and led to his blindness.
He then became a candidate for the rare procedure "tooth-in-eye," a surgery that was developed in the 1960s and has only been performed on a few hundred patients globally.
The surgery, also called oste-odonto-keratoprosthesis, is a treatment for patients with end-stage inflammatory corneal diseases, according to a journal in the National Library of Medicine.
According to the British Dental Journal, it involves creating a support for an artificial cornea from the patient's own tooth and the surrounding bone.
In an interview with Today.com, Chapman's doctor Greg Moloney said that the procedure is for patients with a healthy back of the eye.
He added that patients are typically in disbelief that such a procedure exists.
"It sounded a little science fictiony," Chapman said about the surgery to Today.com. "I was like, 'Who thought of this?' Like this is so crazy."
Chapman's treatment began in February, when he had an upper canine tooth pulled, to be shaped and flattened into a rectangular shape. A hole was then drilled through the tooth to allow the lens to be installed inside.
The second stage of the surgery happened in June, and after waking from the surgery, Chapman could see his hands moving, and after a full recovery, his vision in that eye improved to 20/40 or 20/30. He described the results as "fantastic."
"Vision comes back, and it's a whole new world," he told WABC.
Chapman added, "When Dr. Moloney and I made eye contact, we both just burst into tears. I hadn't really made eye contact in 20 years."
