World Sight Day 2017: 4 Year Old Boy Survives Tough Eye Surgery

World Sight Day: Doctors the Dr Agarwal's Eye Hospital in Chennai successfully completed a complicated eye surgery on a four-year old boy. This effort by the doctors made vision count for the little boy who is now able to see through his right eye. The boy hailing from Krishna district was diagnosed with congenital eye muscle problem. The doctors reveal that S. Karthick had been suffering from congenital ptosis, a drooping eyelid condition and with Monocular Elevation Deficiency (MED), which a condition of downward squint in the right eye. This disturbed his vision altogether.

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The boy was unable to open his eyes from birth itself. His parents consulted a number of doctors to find out a solution for this problem. This is when they approached Dr Agarwal's Eye Hospital.

"Most doctors and several well-meaning people said it'll be corrected as the child grows up," said S Meenakshi, mother of Karthick.

While speaking with reporters at a press conference, Dr Manjula Jayakumar, paediatric ophthalmologist, who performed the procedure said that children who suffer from congenital ptosis will also have MED.

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"But the prevalence of such a condition is 0.5% of all squint cases," added Dr Manjula.

Normally, the downward squint is corrected in two sittings and the third one is meant to fix the drooping eyelid.

"But in this case, downward squint was corrected in single sitting and after a gap of three to four weeks, the drooping eyelid was corrected," she explained.

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First stage of this procedure was conducted on the boy on August 15 and the second one on September 10. After this, the boy was discharged.

"Now my son can see clearly with his right eye," smiled Meenakshi.

Executive director of the hospital, Dr Ashvin Agarwal revealed that this surgical procedure is being reviewed by the Journal of American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus.

With agency inputs