Cost effective CORNEAL ALLOGENIC INTRA-STROMAL RING SEGMENT (CAIRS) procedure is a ray of hope for Keratoconus treatment and other ectatic disorders
Chennai, 26th April, 2018: Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital today announced that they had successfully conducted an innovative surgical treatment for Keratoconus, an eye disease where the cornea becomes thin and gradually develops into a conical shape, thereby creating serious impact to vision. This innovative technique and FIRST TIME IN THE WORLD procedure, the CORNEAL ALLOGENIC INTRA-STROMAL RING SEGMENT (CAIRS) was successfully performed on a 25-year-old Interior designer who had steep vision loss with discomfort while working.
This innovative CAIRS procedure received the ‘Best paper award’ (for the treatment of Keratoconus and corneal ectasias) from American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, Los Angeles. It has been extensively featured in the American Academy of Ophthalmology official website and International Society of Refractive Surgery website and is to be published in the prestigious Journal of Refractive Surgery.
The patient came with a severe defect in his cornea leading to poor vision in both his eyes. He had blurry and distorted vision for more than 3 years and had a poor visual acuity of 5/60. The gradual decrease in vision hampered his routine professional work and regular activities.
Demonstrating on the occasion Dr. Soosan Jacob, Director & Chief, Dr. Agarwal’s Refractive and Cornea Foundation, and inventor of the technique, said, “The patient was diagnosed with severe Keratoconus in both eyes. Under such a situation, a corneal strengthening procedure would still leave the patient with huge power and an irregular cornea. However, when the strengthening procedure was done in combination with the new innovative procedure, CAIRS, the patient was extremely comfortable with good improvement in visual acuity to 6/12 improving even further with glasses to 6/6”.
Dr Ashvin Agarwal, Executive Director, Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital said, “Taking advantage of innovative techniques and implementing new treatments, we bring transformation in the field of Ophthalmology. Such award winning CAIRS procedures have been found to be useful in correcting corneal disorders thus potentially improving the visual acuity. It can also be considered as an effective procedure that can avoid the need for corneal transplantation in these patients”.
The new innovated CAIRS procedure is performed for Keratoconus patients by implanting corneal segments in the form of two semi-circular rings which alters the shape of the cornea and gives improvement in vision. It replaces the usual synthetic Intrastromal Corneal Ring Segments (ICRS) surgical therapy, and thus avoids the use of synthetic material within the human body. Although many patients experience notable improvement in vision with ICRS therapy, there are some cases where there is no subjective or objective improvement in vision. Moreover, the artificial synthetic material remains within the eye as a foreign object. In the case of the new innovated CAIRS procedure, eye donor tissue is used instead of synthetic segments and the procedure is much more cost effective.
Mr Mohan Kumar, the patient said, “Being an Interior designer, my work involved a lot of planning sketches. Since 3 years, I felt that my vision was slowly fading which affected my work. I felt difficulty in performing day to day activities. Today, after this surgery, I got back my effortless vision. Moreover, I had a speedy ready recovery within a week.”
About Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital:
Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital a comprehensive eye hospital offering a one-stop solution for eye ailments; was started in the year 1957. Now the hospital is in its 60th year of offering quality services in eye care. It has 15 branches in Chennai and a visible footprint in the states of Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Karnataka, Odisha, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andaman, West Bengal, and Rajasthan. A tertiary eye care centre at Mauritius marks its first step towards establishing an international presence extended upto 13 branches covering the Indian Ocean region, African countries and East Asia.
