Eye Vision Restored By Tooth Implant

Dr. Kisling Corneal Transplants, Eye Surgery, Fort Collins Eye Doctor, Fort Collins Optometrist, The Light Side Leave a Comment

From the strange realms of the eye world comes a new procedure referred to as modified osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis also called MOOKP. It sounds like something that would have been in the TV show Mork and Mindy for those who saw Robin Williams in his early days portraying an alien on earth.

A patient’s tooth is extracted, drilled with a central channel, and a lens is attached to the lens. After growing in the patients cheek or shoulder for a month or so it is implanted in the eye in cases where a corneal transplant is not possible.

Performed at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, one of the leading Eye Hospitals in the world, the procedures was performed by a corneal eye specialist, Dr Perez,M.D.  assisted by a dentist Dr. Sawatari, D.D.S.

This procedure was initially developed in Italy. The last few years Italian Dentistry has purportedly been moving closer to the practices used in Northern America and Northern Europe.  I’m not quite sure what that implies; in Fort Collins I have never known my dentist to move teeth to places outside of the mouth. I even checked under implants at Harbor Dental and didn’t find a thing about eyeteeth. Tongue in cheek (or tooth), the early results look promising for the small group of people who can really benefit from this unique procedure.

The down side is all of the baby boomers who in 20 to 30 years will be toothless with dentures, There could be a whole new dark side to the tooth fairy. And a root canal in an eye tooth could raise fear of dentists to a new level.

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