Nerve from foot used to restore vision in Indian first

{{quote-A:R-W:450-I:2-Q: This is a landmark in providing superlative care and better hope for patients, who lose their eyesight due to corneal denervating diseases -WHO: Sunil Morekar, Ophthalmologist/ Eye Surgeon in Belapur, Navi Mumbai}}The surgery, performed by a team from the Hiranandani Hospital in Mumbai, had previously only been performed in a few select hospitals around the world and was the first of its kind in India.It involved a corneal transplant, followed by the grafting of the Sural nerve – taken from the patient’s foot – to the cornea and other sensory nerves in her forehead. The novel approach was taken as the 60-year-old had lost sensation in her cornea due to viral neurotrophic keratopathy.“We are ecstatic that it was a success and the results positive. We are proud to be the first to conduct the combined surgery in India as this is a landmark in providing superlative care and better hope for patients, who lose their eyesight due to corneal denervating diseases like Herpes, acoustic neuroma and trauma,” Dr Sunil Morekar, one of the surgeons, said.“We planned and took the risk of the corneal transplant alongside using a new technique called nerve grafting as there was a high risk of failure of the grafted cornea if only the corneal transplant was to be performed.”The patient contracted viral neurotropic keratopathy via herpes simplex virus (HSV) and as a result had suffered vision loss.One of the surgeons, Dr Harshavardhan Ghorpade said the operation was executed with great precision and as a result he believed the patient would respond well and receive around a 70% improvent in her vision within 6–8 weeks.