Munich, June 2024 – Patients in this country still wait up to a year for a new cornea in order to be able to see again. A partial cornea made of plastic has recently become available in Germany and is used in selected complicated cases. “Such an artificial implant is undoubtedly a great step forward,” says Professor Dr. med. Claus Cursiefen, Secretary General of the German Ophthalmological Society (DOG). “Nevertheless, human tissue is usually still light years better.” The Cologne cornea specialist is therefore calling on all those willing to donate to register in the organ donation register or to get a donor card on Organ Donation Day.
The new artificial cornea “EndoArt” was developed in Israel and has been approved in Europe since 2021. EndoArt is made of hydrophilic acrylate, a material similar to contact lenses. “This artificial cornea is only used in very seriously diseased eyes, for example in complicated forms of glaucoma with drainage tubes, in cases of severe swelling or in cases where a human partial transplant has been rejected several times,” explains the DOG Secretary General, who is also Director of the Center for Ophthalmology at the University of Cologne. Because EndoArt is made of plastic, rejection reactions are avoided.
The artificial implant, reports Cursiefen, brings about a slow improvement in visual acuity. “Compared to a transplant made from human tissue, the artificial cornea achieves perhaps a third of the improvement in visual acuity,” explains the DOG expert. But the patients, who are suffering greatly, are satisfied. “Their cornea becomes clearer, and severe swelling also goes down,” says Cursiefen. The artificial cornea is implanted like a contact lens, which is pressed onto the body’s own cornea and fixed with a fine thread. EndoArt is available to all insured persons, and the implantation takes place in specialized corneal centers.
In the vast majority of cases, however, human tissue remains the best option for replacing a human cornea. “Unfortunately, there are still too few corneal donations and we have to get transplants from abroad,” stresses Cursiefen. Against this background, the DOG Secretary General calls on people to think about their own willingness to donate and to enter their decision – whatever it may be – in the new digital organ donation register. “The key is to document your own decision while you are still alive. This makes things much easier for relatives and doctors later on,” stresses Cursiefen. Anyone who would prefer an organ donor card can also arrange this on the website.
A cornea donation is an unobtrusive and uncomplicated procedure. “The tissue removal is not disfiguring and is not visually recognizable to the layperson,” emphasizes Cursiefen. Almost anyone is eligible for a cornea donation: it is possible up to 72 hours after death, despite old age and previous illnesses such as cataracts, astigmatism, long-sightedness or short-sightedness. Its effect is permanent, because a transplant today lasts on average twenty years or more, and only less than five percent of transplant recipients experience a rejection reaction within the first two years – depending on the surgical technique used and the initial situation.
In addition, a transplant can often restore sight to two people who have become blind due to corneal disease or eye injury. This is made possible by the split cornea concept, according to which the donated corneal tissue is divided and distributed among several recipients. “The background to this option is the new minimally invasive surgical technique, so that we only replace the part of the cornea that is diseased and not the entire cornea as was previously the case,” explains Cursiefen.
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