Singapore National Eye Centre : Press Releases & Archive

1) Breakthroughs In Cornea Transplantation At Singapore National Eye Centre
2) Inaugural Asia Cornea Society Scientific Meeting To Be Held In Singapore

New techniques in corneal transplantation have been developed and successfully introduced to patients at the Singapore National Eye Centre. This has vastly improved their recovery, vision and their quality of life. Corneal blindness and related eye infections collectively rank second to cataract as a cause of visual loss, globally although the latter is quite easily reversible through surgery.

Several hundred patients have benefited from the new cornea transplant techniques such as the Deep Anterior Lamellar Keratoplasty (DALK) technique and Descemet’s Stripping Automated Endothelial Keratoplasty (DSAEK) where unlike the conventional form of transplantation, i.e. Penetrating Keratoplasty (PK), microsurgical dissection techniques, automated microkeratomes (as used in LASIK surgery) and new emerging femtosecond surgical lasers are used to finely separate the different layers of the 1/2mm thick cornea so as to only transplant damaged layers of other cornea, whilst retaining the healthy layers.
The new methods significantly lower the risk of rejection, provide better and faster visual recovery, can be sutureless, and have fewer complications, resulting in shorter recovery times and therefore lower cost to the patient.
SNEC’s corneal expertise is among very few eye centres in the world offering these revolutionary techniques of corneal transplantation to patients, and is also becoming a teaching centre to surgeons.
Development of Singapore’s Cornea Transplant Database. It is the largest Asian corneal transplant database today.
Singapore is leading corneal subspecialty development in Asia, through the Asia Cornea Society (ACS), which is registered in Singapore and its secretariat located at the SNEC, thus contributing significantly to the alleviation of corneal blindness by linking up national corneal societies and eye banks in the region.

The landmark Inaugural Asia Cornea Society Meeting will gather corneal leaders and specialists form the region and beyond to determine and deliberate on the emerging trends and latest research and clinical developments over a wide range of corneal and external eye diseases. The theme of the meeting “At the Forefront of the Eye” reflects pivotal developments in our field which are truly transforming how we diagnose, and treat anterior segment diseases today, and research scientists and eye care professionals can look forward to a stimulating exchange of knowledge of information through pleanary lectures, symposia and scientific posters.

An overwhelming response with more than 400 delegates, including 42 invited speakers from Asia and around the globe, as well as 90 poster abstracts. Delegates and speakers coming from 24 different countries, with participants from 12 Asian nations providing this meeting with a truly international perspective.

The scientific programme includes symposia: a wide range of topics including keratoplasty, eye banking, ocular surface disease, corneal infections, keratoprosthesis surgery, corneal refractive surgery, and medical contact lenses, 4 plenary lectures and 2 special lectures, the Singapore Eye Foundation Lecture, and the Asia Cornea Foundation Lecture.

Please see the attached on the new corneal transplant techniques and success results / benefits to patients

Ravi Chandran
Corporate Communications
Singapore National Eye Centre
Email: ravi.chandran@snec.com.sg