Eye Conditions - Eye Birth Defects
Every year, millions of children throughout the world
are born with eye birth defects that cause cloudy corneas. The lack of surgical intervention will result in permanent blindness for a child born with cloudy corneas.
The cornea is the window of the eye.
Light travels through the cornea to the retina, which sends impulses to the brain, allowing vision to develop. Visual development takes place until age eight and then stops. If the cornea is cloudy, which can be caused by an eye birth defect, light cannot reach the retina and impulses cannot reach the brain, resulting in lack of visual development. Without a corneal transplant the infant will become permanently blind.
Some diseases that can cause genetic eye defects include:
Peter's Anomaly: a developmental defect in the structures of the eye characterized by corneal clouding and sometimes adhesions of the iris, lens, and cornea; often accompanied by other defects such as dwarfism and mental retardation.
Hereditary Endothelial and Stromal Dystrophy: In this condition the bottom layer of the cornea, which pumps water out of the cornea to keep it dehydrated, is defective and the cornea swells and becomes cloudy.
Fraser's Syndrome: a rare developmental anomaly in which the skin is continuous over the eyeball without any indication of the formation of eyelids. www.whonamedit.com/synd.cfm/2010.html
Congenital Glaucoma: present at birth or occurring with 3ะด years of age; glaucoma is a group of eye diseases characterized by an increase in pressure within the eye that causes defects in the field of vision.
Mucopolysaccharidoses: a rare metabolic disorder involving a specific enzyme deficiency, which can affect the eyes and cause clouding of the cornea.
Mucolipidoses: an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by psychomotor retardation and severe visual impairment; causes clouding of the cornea in infancy or childhood.
www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/mucolipidoses/mucolipidoses.htm
Corneal Dermoids: benign tumors in which there is growth of normal tissues in abnormal places.
Treatments
Click read more below to learn about our pediatric corneal transplant program.
