New Technologies Save Eye

Excerpt from The Wisconsin State Journal: December 3rd, 2008

Maricela Perez was chopping potatoes when she turned to check on her 21-month-old son, Jandel, and found his face covered with blood.

"I never imagined he would even be able to keep his eye," said Perez, 26, a mother of three.

Not long ago, doctors likely would have removed Jandel's eye, said Dr. Michael Altaweel, a University of Wisconsin Hospital retina and trauma specialist who operated on the boy.

But new technologies - including lasers, magnets, better surgical instruments and oils and gases that act like casts allowing eyes to heal - are giving sight to eye trauma patients who previously would have gone blind, Altaweel said.

Read More: The Wisconsin State Journal