Speaking of artificial cornea, many people are confused: what is artificial cornea, cornea can also be made artificially? Can artificial cornea work?
To tell the truth, before I came into contact with this industry, I did not know why artificial cornea was produced, what its value is. It is unnecessary to invent artificial cornea when there is corneal transplantation? In fact, this is not true. In one aspect or even many aspects, artificial cornea is better than corneal transplantation. As for why I said this, please read on.
According to the report of the International Health Organization in 2009, there are about 314 million people with visual impairment in the world, accounting for 5% of the world's population, including about 45 million blind people and about 8 million cornea blind people.
As we all know, China has the largest population in the world. On the morning of May 11, 2021, the main data of the seventh national population census was released: the national population was 1411.78 million.
Among these people, there are about 20 million patients with visual impairment, including about 3-4 million patients with corneal blindness. 80% of these patients live in rural areas and other economically underdeveloped areas. Corneal blindness makes these patients completely lose their ability to work.
Because most of the pathogenic factors of these patients are acid-base chemical burns, the risk of penetrating keratoplasty is very high, and the success rate is almost zero. At the same time, limited by the lack of corneal donors, economic conditions and the risk of surgery, there are only about 3000 to 5000 cases of corneal transplantation every year in China.
Acid alkali chemical burn is one of the most common pathogenic factors of corneal blindness. In China, acid-base chemical burns are the second most common cause of burns, which can cause functional and organic damage to the anterior segment and ocular surface structures, resulting in permanent loss of visual function of one or both eyes.
According to statistics, the annual proportion of chemical eye injuries in Hong Kong is 125 cases per 100000 people. Most acid-base chemical injuries occur in factories, families or violent attacks. Severe ocular acid-base chemical injuries are an important factor in corneal blindness, and also the main cause of corneal transplantation.
Although with the continuous improvement of corneal transplantation skills, some patients can reconstruct visual function through corneal transplantation. However, there are still many patients with serious ocular surface damage, corneal scar formation, and a large number of new blood vessels on the corneal surface, which makes traditional corneal transplantation very easy to reject. Some patients gave up hope of recovery of vision after corneal transplantation rejection reaction for many times.
After studying the cases of ocular surface chemical burns in Shanghai from 1998 to 2008, the researchers found that the average age of all patients was 35 years old, and nearly half of the patients were workers. Moreover, most of the patients are young men from rural areas who have been in good health in the past. Their work income is the main source of family economy.
For them, corneal blindness is not only a physical and economic damage to themselves, but also an important loss to their families. It is particularly urgent to restore the eyesight of these patients. When traditional corneal transplantation and other operations are powerless, artificial cornea provides a glimmer of hope.
Artificial cornea, as its name implies, is an artificial device used to replace the diseased cornea to play its optical role. It should be noted that although the success rate of penetrating keratoplasty is over 90%, it is still the preferred treatment for corneal endothelial decompensation, keratoconus, corneal dystrophy and corneal degeneration.
However, the success rate of penetrating keratoplasty is almost zero for severe corneal scar and vascularization caused by severe acid-base chemical burns, and the unrecoverable dysfunction of eyelid or conjunctival sac, such as complete closed symblepharon, Stevens Johnson syndrome (SJS), cicatricial pemphigus, and multiple corneal transplantation failures accompanied by severe neovascularization of the graft bed. Artificial cornea implantation is the only hope for these patients to regain their eyesight.
This shows that the appearance of artificial cornea is not accidental, but inevitable. It makes up for the shortcomings of traditional corneal transplantation, and enables thousands of corneal blindness to regain their confidence in themselves and life. It is a "great product" to solve the problem of blindness caused by illness and help them recover their eyesight.
Of course, this also shows from the side that the artificial cornea needs to be constantly improved and assume the responsibility that should be borne by itself. This is the case with Mihm artificial cornea. It is made of artificial materials and does not require donor corneas. It is the first artificial cornea in the world that does not require donor corneas, which alleviates the shortage of corneal donors in China. It is the only treatment for the above contraindications of traditional corneal transplantation.
If you or your family members in front of the screen become blind due to the above reasons, you can call our official customer service hotline: 400-111-8801 for consultation, and hope to see you soon.