The cornea is a layer of transparent tissue in front of the eyeball. In addition to the congenital lesions, it is also vulnerable to the influence or damage of external factors. Once encountering infection or lesions, it usually requires corneal transplantation to recover.
According to public data, corneal blindness has become the second major blindness after cataract. Corneal ulcer, perforation or corneal leukoplakia may occur in patients with keratopathy without effective treatment, which may lead to blindness.
In China, nearly 4 million people are blind due to keratopathy, and the number is increasing year by year. However, due to the limited number of corneas available in our eye bank, only about 10000 cornea transplantation operations are carried out in China each year.
Ten thousand cases, just the population of a small town in Motuo County, Linzhi.
At the same time, corneal resources across the country are also very scarce and in short supply. According to the statistics of China Human Organ Donation Management Center, 4907 cornea donations will be completed in 2021, an increase of about 20% over last year. Although the amount of cornea donation has increased in recent years, compared with the new number of patients, it is a drop in the bucket, which makes most of the hospitals that can do corneal transplantation face the dilemma of "equal rice for food".
However, this is understandable. The reason why people do not want to donate corneas is that they are influenced by traditional concepts such as "body and skin, parents" and the funeral custom of "being buried in peace". Although many people know that donating organs and corneas is a public welfare act, it is still difficult to do so in practice.
Many people are worried that their relatives are difficult to accept emotionally, and they hold conservative opinions on organ donation after death. Even if someone is willing to donate, they may not be able to do so because their families object or do not contact the donor institution in time.
Just because of the shortage of corneal donors, most corneal patients can only wait in the dark. Some patients even delay the best treatment opportunity due to the lack of corneal donors, and finally have to remove the eyeball.
Corneal transplantation is a surgical method that uses the normal transparent corneal tissue of allograft to replace the diseased and turbid unhealthy corneal tissue, so as to control the progress of the disease and improve the visual function. At present, corneal transplantation has long been a mature ophthalmic technology, helping many patients with keratopathy to regain sight and improve their quality of life.
After reading this, did everyone suddenly understand? Surgery is so mature. Why are there so few corneal transplantation operations carried out in China every year? Because of the lack of donor corneal materials.
Because the key to the implementation of corneal transplantation is to have healthy corneal donor materials, which must be professionally and strictly screened, collected and preserved to ensure that high-quality, safe and healthy donor materials can be timely provided to the doctors who perform corneal transplantation, so as to meet the clinical needs and successfully perform corneal transplantation.
In fact, no matter what type of surgery, there is no technical problem. The key is to solve the problem of donors. Fortunately, Mihm artificial cornea can be used in clinic to alleviate the lack of donor cornea.
Mihe artificial cornea is made of artificial materials without donor cornea, which is helpful to alleviate the shortage of corneal donors in China. The product is applicable to patients with binocular corneal blindness who are difficult to succeed in corneal transplantation, including corneal transplantation failure, severe keratoconjunctival scar vascularization caused by chemical injury, thermal burn, explosive injury, eyelid atresia, severe autoimmune diseases (such as Stevens Johnson syndrome and cicatricial pemphigoid), and corneal blindness caused by dry eyes in the final stage.
Finally, we also remind everyone that we must pay attention to the protection of the cornea in our daily life. Friends working in high-risk places must improve their ability to avoid danger in an emergency. Once they are injured, they should go to the professional ophthalmology department for corneal examination at the first time.
Moreover, the potential danger of keratopathy is very big, so don't be careless. Once there are symptoms such as eye pain, vision loss, corneal congestion, etc., you should also use drugs early, adhere to treatment, and strive to recover in the early stage of the onset of keratopathy to prevent the disease from expanding.