Experimental iris implant lets patient see

Nathaniel Schull, 17, can at last see the classical piano scores he composes, thanks to a Long Island eye surgeon who performed a still-experimental iris implant operation on him.

Dr. Kenneth Rosenthal, a Great Neck ophthalmologist and surgeon, conducted the first of two planned iris-implant operations on Schull on Thursday at The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary in Manhattan.

Within 24 hours of receiving the artificial iris, Schull, of West Haven, Conn., experienced a transformation so dramatic that his left eye went from legal blindness to 20/40 eyesight - near-normal vision. The iris helps regulate light.

Rosenthal applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration through a so-called "compassionate-use device exemption," a protocol required when medical implants have not been cleared by the agency.

The German-made iris device is used in Europe, but has not been approved in the United States. The company, Rosenthal said, hopes to work with U.S. physicians to conduct clinical trials in this country.

The doctor says he now wants to wait a few months as Schull gets used to the silicone implant before conducting the same surgery in his right eye.

"This [surgery] is for a relatively small but needy portion of the population for whom there was no previous solution," said Rosenthal, who is also a clinical professor of ophthalmology at NYU School of Medicine in Manhattan. He described the surgery as minimally invasive.

Schull, born with congenital aniridia - the absence of irises - had been visually impaired since birth.

His mom, Lauren Geib, a head nurse at Yale-New Haven Hospital, said she had taken her son to doctors since infancy. All were stumped until a Yale specialist recommended Rosenthal last summer. Geib, a single mother of two, said she had to raise $52,000 because the operation is considered experimental and not covered by insurance, though insurance did pay for the cataract removal procedure that preceded the implant.

"I worked extra shifts, I borrowed from relatives. It's not easy to raise that much money," she said.

"It didn't hurt at all," said Schull, a high school junior, referring to the operation in which the implant is secured within the eye's capsule. Scar tissue ultimately forms, stabilizing the implant and holding the device permanently in place.

"As soon as I woke up after the surgery, my eye was a little swollen but my sight had gotten so much better," he said.

When Schull had the disorder in both eyes, photographs depicted them as two bright red dots because so much light entered his irises. With the implant in place, the left eye now appears normal. He chose to have green implants to match the color of his best friend's eyes.

As the colored portion of the eye, the iris can be brown, blue and green or rare exotics, such as shades of violet. It is vital to vision because it aids the pupil in regulating the amount of light that enters the eye. Without an iris, the pupil remains dilated, Rosenthal said, impairing vision and forcing people with the condition to rely on dark glasses to control light.

Rosenthal said congenital aniridia is a syndrome accompanied by cataracts and an absence of ocular stem cells that help maintain the health of the cornea.

-Click here to see YouTube video of the surgery