New Meaning to "Eye Tooth"

Did you know that if you go bind it is possible to see with your eye tooth. Yep. No kidding. Look what I have found in medical news.

Nine years ago, Sharron Thornton’s hair and nails fell out, while her skin developed a blistering rash.  Turns out she was suffering from a very rare condition—know as Stevens-Johnson syndrome—caused by a reaction to a medication. She eventually went blind after the cells in her eye died and left corneal scarring.

While her hair and skin grew back, her eyes remained useless. Her condition devastated her: She thought about suicide, and tried a stem cell procedure, but couldn’t be considered for a cornea transplant. Finally she went on a desperate search for any experimental treatment to cure her blindness.

The surgery, Osteo Odonto Kerato Prosthesis (OOKP), involved fitting a living canine tooth with an optical cylinder and transplanting it into the eye cavity.

For the first time in the U.S., surgeons decided to perform this rare procedure to correct corneal scaring. While the procedure has been done a total of 600 times since the 1980s, it’s still pretty complicated: First the surgeons took Thornton’s tooth and part of her jawbone, and made a hole for the prosthetic lens. Then it got weirder: The surgeons implanted the modified tooth into the woman’s chest and left it there for a few months so the two parts could grow together. And finally, the tooth was implanted into her eye.

Not all doctors in the US think this is a good idea. Dr. Ivan Schwab with the American Academy of Ophthalmology told CNN he believes the process is too difficult and the result too disfiguring. There are alternatives that are nearly as good, he added. “We’ve known about the procedure since the ’80s. It’s been going on for a while,” he said. “We’ve viewed it with some skepticism. It requires a sizable team and several operations. It seems to be reasonably successful on the small numbers that have been done,” though it does bring some disfigurement. Enlarge the image to understand how the procedure is done.

A 57 year-old Irish father-of-eight was blinded in a work-place accident, when liquid aluminum exploded in his face in November 2005. "I thought I was going to be blind for the rest of my life. I went to see a professor in Nottingham who was involved in stem cell research and he transplanted some embryonic membrane, but it did not work. He suggested Dr Liu in the Sussex Eye Hospital in Brighton and we took it from there," he said.

They were going to use his eye tooth to transplant but given his age, it was decided that a donor with younger gums would be more suitable. All eight of his children volunteered to provide a tooth, but in the end it was a son who was his namesake that gave his tooth. While the son was having his tooth and part of his gum and lower jaw extracted, his father was being prepared to receive his new eye, which was finally fitted after a total of 16 hours on the operating table. The cost was in the neighborhood of $100,000.

Given the complicated procedure that is involved, Mr. McNichol was told there was just a 65 percent chance of success but, as far as he is concerned, it has been a complete success.

"It doesn't look that great to be honest. People think I look like the Terminator but I don't care. The looks end of it are cosmetic and they don't matter. "What is incredible is that I have come out of darkness into light again. I can watch television. I can walk down the street on my own. I can play darts and pool. I can see my wife and kids. It is just unbelievable"

The surgery which was pioneered in Italy in the 1960’s, is carried out on patients for whom conventional corneal transplants will not work. It entails replacing a damaged cornea with a live tooth root and attached optical cylinder.

As you look at the picture of Mr. McNichol, would you be willing to look like that if you could see again?