Cornea

Know Your Cornea

The cornea is the eye’s outermost layer. It is the clear, dome-shaped surface that covers the front of the eye. It is responsible for more than 2/3rd of the eye’s focusing power. Unlike most tissues in the body, the cornea contains no blood vessels to nourish or protect it against infection. Instead, the cornea receives its nourishment from the tears and aqueous humor that fills the chamber behind it. To see well, all layers of the cornea must be free of any cloudy or opaque areas. When cornea becomes cloudy due to disease, injury, infection or malnutrition, vision is significantly lost or reduced

Corneal Transplantation

Cornea is the transparent covering of eye which helps in passage and focus of light and also has an important protective function. Any insult like infection in cornea will cause whiteness/opacity which will decrease vision as well as has cosmetic implications. Initially glasses or contact lens any help in improvement of vision, but after a certain stage, the white/ diseased cornea needs to be replaced and a donor transparent cornea needs to be transplanted for improving vision. Corneal transplantation has relatively higher success rate than other body organ transplantations as cornea is relatively avascular, and so blood group matching is also not required.