They don't call them "Eye Teeth" for nothing.


A hundred years ago, we bit bullets and drank whiskey during surgery that probably killed us anyway.

In present time, instead of biting bullets with those teeth, we use them to cure blindness.

It's called Osteo-Odonto-Keratoprosthesis, and according to this Brisbane Times article, it allowed Bob McNichol, an Irishman blinded by an explosion two years ago, to regain some of his site.
"The technique, pioneered in Italy in the 1960s, involves creating a support for an artificial cornea from the patient's own tooth and the surrounding bone.

The procedure used on McNichol involved his son Robert, 23, donating a tooth, its root and part of the jaw.

McNichol's right eye socket was rebuilt, part of the tooth inserted and a lens inserted in a hole drilled in the tooth.

The first operation lasted ten hours and the second five hours.

"It is pretty heavy going," McNichol said. "There was a 65 percent chance of me getting any sight.

"Now I have enough sight for me to get around and I can watch television. I have come out from complete darkness to be able to do simple things," McNichol said."


My fraccy advice to everyone? Now you have one more reason to take good care of your teeth. Someday, your sight might depend on it!

More information about Osteo-Odonto-Keratoprosthesis:

1. http://www.city.ac.uk/avrc/groups/cpo/example17.html
2. http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_561537159/osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis.html
3. http://www.wihrd.soton.ac.uk/projx/signpost/steers/STEER_2001(6).pdf
 
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