Cost effective CORNEAL ALLOGENIC INTRA-STROMAL RING SEGMENT (CAIRS) procedure is a ray of hope for Keratoconus treatment and other ectatic disorders.

Chennai, 26th April, 2018:Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital today announced that they hadsuccessfully conducted aninnovative surgical treatment for Keratoconus, an eye disease where the cornea becomes thin and gradually develops into a conical shape, thereby creating serious impact tovision. Thisinnovative technique and FIRST TIME IN THE WORLDprocedure, the CORNEAL ALLOGENIC INTRA-STROMAL RING SEGMENT (CAIRS)was successfully performed on a25-year-old Interior designer who hadsteep vision loss with discomfort while working. 

This innovative CAIRS procedure receivedthe ‘Best paper award’(for the treatment of Keratoconus and corneal ectasias) from American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, Los Angeles. It has been extensively featured in theAmerican Academyof Ophthalmologyofficial website and International Society of Refractive Surgery website and is to be published in the prestigious Journal of Refractive Surgery. 

The patient came with a severe defect in his cornea leading to poor vision in both his eyes. He hadblurry and distorted vision for more than 3 years and had a poor visual acuity of 5/60. The gradual decrease in vision hampered his routine professional work and regular activities.

Demonstrating on the occasion Dr.Soosan Jacob, Director  & Chief, Dr. Agarwal’sRefractive and Cornea Foundation,and inventor of the technique,said, “The patient was diagnosed with severe Keratoconus in both eyes. Under such a situation, a corneal strengthening procedure would still leave the patient with huge power and an irregular cornea. However, when the strengthening procedure was done in combination with the new innovative procedure, CAIRS, thepatient was extremely comfortable with good improvement in visual acuity to 6/12 improving even further with glasses to 6/6”.

Dr Ashvin Agarwal, Executive Director, Dr Agarwal’sEye Hospital said, “Taking advantage of innovative techniques and implementing new treatments, webring transformation in the field of Ophthalmology. Such award winning CAIRS procedures have been found to be useful in correcting corneal disorders thus potentially improving the visual acuity. It can also be considered as an effective procedurethat can avoid the need for corneal transplantation in thesepatients”.

The new innovated CAIRS procedure is performed for Keratoconus patients by implanting corneal segments in the form of two semi-circular rings which alters the shape of the cornea and gives improvement in vision. It replaces theusual synthetic Intrastromal Corneal Ring Segments (ICRS) surgical therapy, and thus avoids the use of synthetic material within the human body. Although many patients experience notable improvement in vision with ICRS therapy, there are some cases where there is no subjective or objective improvement in vision. Moreover, the artificial synthetic material remains within the eye as a foreign object.In the case of the new innovated CAIRS procedure, eye donor tissue is used instead of synthetic segments and the procedure is much more cost effective.  

Mr Mohan Kumar, the patient said, “Being an Interior designer, my work involved a lot of planning sketches. Since 3 years, I felt that my vision was slowly fading which affected my work.I felt difficulty in performing day to day activities. Today, after this surgery, I got back my effortless vision. Moreover, I had a speedy ready recovery within a week.”