| Questions and answers about the implantable Collamer lens |
Q: What is Collamer?
A: According to its manufacturer, the STAAR Surgical Company, it is made of a copolymer and collagen, making it biocompatible.
Q: Exactly where is the lens implanted?
A: The lens is placed in the posterior chamber of the eye- behind the iris (the colored portion of the eye) and in front of the eye's crystalline lens. There it rests quietly indefinitely.
Q: How is the lens implanted?
A: A microscopic opening is made with a diamond tipped blade where the white of the eye meets the colored part. A gel-like substance is injected into the eye, and the roughly rectangular lens is injected into the eye, in front of the iris. The surgeon then unfolds the lens and tucks each corner of it under the iris. The gel is then removed. The cuts, so small they need no stitches, heal rapidly. Most patients, the manufacturer says, see immediate results following the approximately 15 minute procedure.
Q: What if the patient's vision changes over time?
A: The lens, while meant to be permanent, may be replaced. Glasses and contact lenses may also be worn with the artificial lenses.
Q: Can the implanted lenses get dirty like contact lenses?
A: No.They are designed to stay in the eye without maintenance.
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New treatment available at Newsom
Christopher Tuffley
Staff writer
AVON PARK - Jacob Ranquist was wearing glasses by the time he was 16 months old.
The lenses were the size of dimes and he broke them all the time, his father Chuck Ranquist says.
Congenital eye problems run in the family. Ranquist's older brother Micah's eyesight is so bad he attended the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind.
Without corrections, Jacob added, his own vision is separated blurs of color.
If someone stands still long enough, Jacob might be able to make out a shape. Forget about recognizing anybody. In fact, Ranquist's ability to see is so compromised he unconsciously developed the habit of turning his ear toward a speaker, instead of looking for eye contact.
For a while in high school - he graduated from Avon Park in 2005 - he was able to use contact lenses. He was even able to drive. But glasses can only correct so much, and over time he lost ground.
First he couldn't play sports, then he gave up the dream of becoming a police officer, then his ideas of college.
Ranquist did have a job at Winn-Dixie bagging groceries and collecting carts, which he was able to keep after graduation.
But by November of 2007 his sight had deteriorated to the point he voluntarily stopped driving- his lack of vision, he said, making him a danger to others.
The most difficult aspect of his situation, Ranquist said, was keeping positive and hanging onto hope.
When he was 18 and still in high school, he heard exciting news.
A new treatment had been developed in Europe, an artificial lens made out of a new material called Collamer. The technical breakthrough meant an artificial, correcting lens, could be surgically placed over the eye's faulty natural lens. The results were said to be excellent.
According to the manufacturer, STAAR Surgical Company, while the new lens may not provide perfect vision by itself every time, it improves sight enough that additional correction, glasses or contact lenses, can make up the difference. In most cases, however, the new lens is enough by itself.
Ranquist and his family looked into this treatment and met disappointment.
Because the lenses had been developed outside of the United States, and the Federal Drug Administration has not completed its approval, no one under the age of 21 is allowed to use them.
Breakthrough
Also, the breakthrough is so new, almost no one here is familiar with it.
Which is where Dr. T. Hunter Newsom enters the picture.
Newsom is an opthalmologist who prides himself on staying on the cutting edge. His practice, Newsom Eye and Laser Center, has been doing Lasik surgery long enough for him to have developed a respected reputation, not just locally, but nationally.
Unfortunately, as much of a breakthrough as Lasik surgery is, it cannot help everyone. So when Newsom learned of newer advances coming out of Switzerland, and that the company had opened for business in California, he looked into the Collamer technology.
At one point he went to the Dominican Republic, learning and practicing the technique there before the FDA would allow it in the States.
The advances, Newsom said, lie in the material the lens is made of, and the fact that the lens is implanted behind the iris, becoming a part of the eye without changing its shape at all.
While it is meant to be permanent, it can be removed.
When the Ranquists learned about the new lens in 2005 -it had been pre-market approved in Europe in 1991 - they went to Newsom. But Ranquist was only 18. He was told he would have to wait three years.
"I didn't see eye to eye with Newsom at first, if you'll pardon the pun," Ranquist said. "But he was wonderful, one of the top rated (doctors doing Lasik surgery) in the country, and he and everyone treated us like family."
No sooner had he turned 21 on Valentine's Day, than Chuck Ranquist was on the phone, calling Newsom, calling the Division of Blind Services, calling anyone who could help.
The procedure was conducted as out-patient surgery on June 10 and Jacob Ranquist's additional corrective lenses - both glasses and contacts - are on order.
Best of all, from the moment of the surgery, even without the additional corrections, Ranquist can already see enough to recognize people and walk around freely; with the further corrections he'll be back to reading, maybe even driving.
He is once again thinking about college and a career in forensic physcology.
But that isn't the message he wants to leave.
"Don't give up," he said forcefully. "No matter how bad your vision, never lose hope."
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