Jubail hospital performs cornea transplantation

The Royal Commission Hospital (RCH) in Jubail has successful performed a cornea transplantation surgery on a 23-year-old Saudi man.
The patient was suffering from a severe defection in his vision as a result of a hereditary disease known as keratoconus.
Dr. Raafat Taha, ophthalmologist consultant at RCH, explained that the cornea has a convex surface and is the front transparent part of the eye. He likened its role in the eye to the function of the lens in a camera.
“In special cases the cornea becomes cone shaped or the surface becomes irregular as in keratoconus. In this case the image is not clear on the retina,” he noted.
“We needed to remove the affected part from the cornea and replace it with a transparent one. This operation is called corneal transplantation, where the central part of the patient’s cornea is removed and replaced with a similar part taken from a donor cadaver. The operation was performed under general anesthesia and took about an hour,” he said.
The Saudi Society for Organ Transplantation recognizes the RCH as one of the key centers for corneal transplantation.
The hospital is well equipped with facilities and qualified physicians to perform this kind of complex operation. Six operations have been successfully performed in the hospital so far.
The RCH is planning to establish an eye bank, which will play a significant role in fighting corneal diseases and blindness.