Artificial cornea is the biggest innovation for corneal diseases.
There are several kinds: the most used is the Boston artificial cornea (keratoprosthesis) that Dr. Badalà implanted for the first time in Italy in 2008: now he performs such surgery on a regular basis in Milan and Catania. There’s a new artificial cornea model that is in an experimentation phase: it has been synthesized in the lab but it’s still awaiting improvements in terms of materials’ solidity.
In the past, another artificial cornea (or keratoprosthesis) had great success: Prof. Falcinelli from Rome perfectioned a technique that now bears his name (Falcinelli keratoprosthesis): it consists in building an artificla cornea starting from a patient’s tooth.
The Boston artificial cornea (keratoprosthesis) is the latest innovation and already the most used one worldwide.
It is made of last generation plastic materials and titanium and goes along well with the uman eye.
The most important things to keep in mind abou the Boston artificial cornea are:
Risks linked to the Boston artificial cornea are ligther compared to the ones coming from other kinds of artificial cornea; anyway, there is always the risk of infection, and this is why it is always recommended to use antibiotic eye drops. Dr. Badalà is the first italian surgeon that implanted the Boston artificial cornea and he is still today the doctor with the widest experience: he performed more than 60 in the last 6 years.
The main advantage of the Boston artificial cornea is that, even in case of rejection, the artificial cornea stays transparent. In any case, patients that have been operated via this technique should wear contact lenses and use eye drops constantly.
Dr. Badalà held several
courses about the Boston artificial cornea transplant during the major international congresses (see the News section). You can find all the detail of its first artificial cornea surgery in Italy in the article to the side, published in 2008.