Department News

Thanks, doc!

Blind for 5 years, now he can see

George Setinc had never seen his grandchildren until a cutting-edge surgery performed in Chicago restored his vision after five years in the dark. After bandages came off, his wife held up five fingers. He could count them. “I was shaking.” she said.

This is A Miracle'

Implant lets blind man see wife for 1 st time in 5 years

Tuesday morning, like every other morning for the last five years, George Setinc woke up a blind man,

But Tuesday afternoon, he suddenly could see again.

That morning, doctors at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago implanted an artificial cornea in Setinc's left eye.

Four hours after the surgery, the patch came off. Dr, Dimitri Azar asked Setinc's wife, Linda, to put up some fingers.

How many do you see, Setinc was asked.

“Five.” Setinc answered.

And he was correct.

“As far as I'm concerned,” Linda said. “This is a miracle. You don't expect someone who is blind to see after all these years.”

It was the moment they had been praying for so long. Linda got up, walked over to her husband of 41 years, and put her arms around him.

30,000 transplants a year

“I was trying not to cry,” she recalled. “I was shaking. It was so joyous.”

The cornea is the transparent, dome shaped surface of the eye that does much of the eye's focusing. Patients can lose vision if cornea are scarred, clouded over, swollen or otherwise damaged.

© Chicago Sun-Times 2007 (Appears in Sunday, February 11, 2007 Issue)

The conventional treatment is to transplant a cornea from a deceased donor. Since there generally is an adequate supply of donor corneas, patients typically don't have to wait for transplants.

There are about 30,000 cornea transplants in the United States each year. The surgery usually succeeds in restoring sight. In some patients, however, transplanted corneas eventually fail because the body rejects them or for other reasons. About 13 percent of cornea transplants are done on patients in whom earlier transplants have failed.

Artificial corneas, made of clear plastic, are generally intended for patients who have failed two previous transplants. They also are used in certain patients, such as Setinc, who don't qualify for conventional cornea transplants.

Part plastic, part donated

Setinc had Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a condition in which immune system attacks healthy tissue, including the cornea. The condition made Setinc ineligible for a conventional cornea transplant.

Serinc, 61, has had vision problems for much of his life. By 1975, he was legally blind. Although he still has some sight, he had to quit his job re-possessing cars.

Over the years, Setinc's vision continued to deteriorate. Five or six years ago, he went blind. He could tell whether the lights were on but couldn't see anything.

People had to tell him what his grandchildren looked like. He missed watching TV, especially boxing and ‘ Walker , Texas Ranger.' All he could do was listen to game shows and poker tournaments.

Setinc, who lives in Downtown Savannah, took a blind rehab program at Hines VA Hospital. He learned how to cook, how to work with tools, how to navigate with a cane.

Setinc's new cornea is a part plastic, part donated tissue. The plastic part was clamped into the center of a cornea from a deceased donor. This new cornea then was sutured into Setinc's eye.

One of the first things Setinc saw when the patch came off was Linda's face. “I saw a woman I haven't seen in five years.” He said.

“She looked good.”

Following the surgery Setinc's eye was so swollen he had to hold his eye lid open with his finger. And because his eye hadn't Setinc had trouble focusing.

Setinc now had 20/100 vision in his left eye, meaning he can see at 20 feet what a person with normal vision can see at 100 feet. His vision will probably improve, said Dr. Jose de la Cruz, one of his surgeons.

Step by Step improvements

Some patients with artificial corneas have close to 20/20 vision although its too early to predict what Setinc's vision ultimately will be.

Patients are at risk for infections that cold destroy their new corneas. The risk is especially high in those with Stevens-Johnson syndrome. Setinc must take antibiotic eyedrops every day for the rest of his life.

The artificial cornea was developed over the last 40 years by Dr. Claes Dohlman of Harvard medical School. (Azar, who did Setinc's surgery, was a colleague of Dohlman before coming to UIC.)

Dohlman said earlier attempts failed miserably, but there have been step-by-step improvements. Of 173 artificial corneas Dohlman and a colleague transplanted in the last three years, only two have failed.

Dohlman said about 1200 patients worldwide have received his artificial cornea called, called the Boston Keratoprosthesis. About 80 surgeons, mostly in United States , are trained to implant it. A second artificial cornea on the market is called AlphaCor.