Surgeons at Thessaloniki hospital perform rare corneal transplant

Surgeons at a Thessaloniki hospital have successfully performed a corneal transplant on a 48-year-old woman using a donation from an eight-month-old baby who had died of a heart attack.

The complex operation took place on Tuesday at the Second University Ophthalmology Clinic at Papageorgiou hospital.

As the clinic director, ophthalmology professor Nikolaos Ziakas, said, the woman, who had corneal endothelial dystrophy, had been on a waiting list for five years and had already undergone a corneal transplant in the other eye.

The patient will be discharged Friday, while her vision is expected to return within a month.

This is the world’s second successful corneal transplant from a donor infant, the first having been performed at the same clinic, five years ago, with a donation from a three-month-old infant.

Source: AMNA