NEW DELHI: The National Eye Bank (NEB) at AIIMS collected 2,234 donor corneas last year, the highest in the last 50 years.“Out of corneas collected, 1,426 were transplanted and the utilisation rate was recorded at 65%, which is above the national average,” said Jeewan S Titiyal, professor Opthalmology, head of Cornea Services at RP Centre and Chairman of the National Eye Bank.
Titiyal said in the first six months of this year, 1,247 corneas were collected, of which 942 were utilised.“We have set out sights at 3,000 donor tissue collections and getting more than 2,000 transplants in a year,” Titiyal added.
Namrata Sharma, secretary, Eye Bank Association of India, and a professor of Opthalmology at RP Centre, said that nationally, 57,996 corneas were collected in 2018 and there have been 26,682 transplants (29 per cent growth from 2012), thus amounting to 46% utilisation.
“74 per cent of corneas are contributed by seven states — Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi,” she said.Titiyal said the eye bank is in the process of developing an app-based programme to track the registration of patients awaiting surgeries.
“There have been cases where surgeries were not successful. Therefore, we decided to keep track of patients after surgery so as to keep a direct line of communication with them. We have also started an integrated AIIMS Delhi HCRP programme for collection and transplantation of corneal tissues,” he added.