4:44 PM
Keshav Bhat
Image via WikipediaOnce, artificial eyes looked patently false but the latest prosthetics used today look almost real, with precise colour-matching, accurate shaping and some eye movement possible.
Dr M. Ashwin Reddy, consultant paediatric ophthalmologist at Barts and the London and Moorfields Eye Hospital, says: 'Artificial eyes have been used for more than 100 years, first appearing in the late 19th Century'.
In the past, patients simply had a shell without anything behind to increase the volume in the eye socket. This resulted in drooping of the eyelid and didn't really make for a very good cosmetic result.
Now a patient will usually have a ball-shaped orbital implant surgically inserted into the socket. If you remove the eye, there's no tissue left, so the implant helps keep the structure of the eye socket, replaces volume and gives a better result.
This is particularly important with young children, as the bones of the eye socket can then grow around the implant.
Nigel Sapp, chief ocularist (prosthetic expert) at Moorfields Eye Hospital, explains, today's prostheses are very realistic.
'Prostheses are moulded to a patient's socket or eye remnant and the colour of the iris is slowly built up, literally using a paintbrush and some dry-powder pigment paints in front of the patient until we achieve a good colour match.
'Before, artificial eyes would come from stock. Even the white of the eye is colour-matched and vessels and veins are added using embroidery threads, to match the patient's own characteristics.'
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