What are the diseases that might harm your cornea?

Did you know? The cornea is the rounded transparent part in the front of your eye. Its main role is to “refract” the rays of light penetrating the eye and help concentrate them on the retina. In other words: the cornea is a window through which we see. In order to maintain its proper function, the cornea must maintain its sphere shape and its transparency.

However, there are various diseases that might harm its transparency or its shape and also our vision, and these include:

• Dry eyes: a syndrome which becomes more common with age, and is caused as a result from a decrease in tear secretion or a change in their compound. The syndrome is not dangerous in its first stages but it might harm the function and the quality of life significantly.
• Pterygium: a disease that causes the degeneration of the conjunctiva (eye white) and the growth of a conjunctiva tissue (cataract) on the cornea. This is a chronic disease that might disrupt your vision and become an aesthetic harm
• Keratoconus: a disease making the cornea’s shape change, become thinner and more convex and might decrease the sharpness of your vision.
• Cornea edema: a situation that may develop as a result of a number of diseases or following surgeries. Beyond the severe harm to your sight, this situation might be accompanied by pains and redness.
• OCP – Ocular Cicatricial Pemphgoid: an infectious auto immune disease that may cause blindness.

How to Diagnose and Treat?

The clinic for cornea diseases in the Kaplan Medical Center is unique as it offers innovative treatments, for some of which the Kaplan eye doctors were pioneers in Israel. Therefore, we receive patients from all over Israel.

In terms of diagnostics, we use advanced imaging methods including a computerized topography of the cornea, counting of endothels, photographing the front segment and testing the cornea thickness using an ultrasound.

Dry eyes: the treatment includes using drugs some of which are available only through the cornea clinic and they are not given in the community eye clinic as a routine. Treating a dry cornea which is secondary to the OCP disease is conducted with the rheumatology clinic in the hospital and includes various low dosages of chemotherapy.

Keratoconus: to treat this disease we established a unique clinic in Israel. We perform treatment using an innovative technology, called cross linking, designated to stop the progress of the disease. Patients suffering from Keratoconus are invited to our clinic to be diagnosed and counseled about the compatibility of the method to their condition and also for follow up after the unique treatment.

Also, our clinic performs essential imaging tests, tests by optometrists, and a summarizing test by doctors, all under one roof. This way, we save you, the patients, a lot of running around and precious time.

Pterygium: the eye doctors in the Kaplan Medical Center were among the first in Israel to perform conjunctiva implant surgeries during a surgery to remove pterygium. This method significantly raises the success rates, improves the surgery results and shows a significant decrease in pterygium regrowth rates.

Cornea implant surgeries: are done by us in the most advanced methods in the world, allowing quick recovery decreasing the risk to reject the implant and maintaining the strength and intactness of the operated eye.

The cornea clinic is a part of the eye ward in the Kaplan Medical Center. A referral to the eye clinic can be obtained from your ophthalmologist, using the form no. 17.