KARACHI, Jan 19: Crystalens which restores complete vision in cataract patients for the first time in Pakistan. The lens was implanted free of cost at Layton Rahmatulla Benevolent Trust Hospital. Dr Afzal Ahmed, a visiting US consultant to the hospital, performed the surgery on 56-year-old Chaudhry Abdul Latif, of Firdaus Colony, Old Golimar. Dr Afzal comes twice a year to the hospital to train and introduce latest techniques in eye surgery. He plans to do more such implants next week after he returns from Lahore.
Explaining the characteristics of the new lenses, Dr Afzal said that after their implant, a patient did not need glasses. The intraocular lenses being used at present were limited to one focal point and the patient needed glasses or contact lenses.
The new lenses, he said, worked like the natural lense, they move back and forth and focus at near, middle and far distances. He said there was no side-effect of the lens itself. However, a patient could have post-surgery complications similar to other eye surgery cases like haemorrhage or lens dislocation, which was normal.
“These lenses have been in use for three years in Europe, and introduced last year in the US. The cost factor restricts mass implant. Each lenses cost about $900 and the six I have brought for implants here have been donated by Eyeonics, a company manufacturing the special lenses,” Dr Afzal said.
Speaking about the factors responsible for the increasing number of eye diseases, he said the same reasons were to blame in all developing countries. Eye-care facilities were not within the masses’ reach’. There was a lack of awareness, sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, smoking and rise in metabolic diseases like diabetes and hypertension. Macular degeneration, he said, was a major cause of blindness after cataract and glaucoma especially in older people.
He said people should protect their eyes from sunlight and wear sunglasses. There should be mass screening for glaucoma as there are no symptoms of the disease in its initial stages. About 1.5 million people are blind in the country and 150,000 go blind every year. Eighty per cent of blindness is curable and cataract is the most common cause.
The LRBT is an 82-bed hospital in Korangi undergoing expansion. It has the latest equipment the hospital where almost 800 OPD patients and 90 surgeries are performed daily. A clinic for low vision, which is a much unrecognised problem in Pakistan, is also run here.
