FV Hospital Launches Cornea Transplant Service

FV Hospital announced last week that it had become the first private hospital in Vietnam to collaborate with Professor Donald Tan, a corneal surgeon from Singapore, to provide cornea transplant service. Professor Tan uses the world’s latest form of transplant: partial corneal transplantation, which involves just replacing the diseased layers of the cornea, and keeping the healthy layers. Success rates can be as high as 98% as these procedures now lead to far less complications and better vision than conventional older forms of transplant, where doctors had to change the entire cornea. Corneal transplant rejection is a cause of transplant failure in 15% of the older conventional full corneal transplant. In addition to Professor Donald Tan’s consultation and operations, the corneas used for transplantation are imported from major eye banks in the U.S. and other countries, where donated corneas are restored and preserved in good conditions. The Vietnamese Ministry of Health has allowed FV Hospital to import corneas, and granted the practice license to Professor Donald Tan’s corneal transplantation at FV Hospital. Currently in Vietnam, corneal transplantation is conducted at the Vietnam National Institute of Ophthalmology in Hanoi, HCMC Eye Hospital, Cho Ray Hospital and Saigon Eye Hospital, but there are not many transplant cases. It’s partly due to the limited supply source of corneas because of popular perception that a dead body must be intact, people do not want to donate their corneas. FV Hospital’s cornea transplant service is expected to help reduce corneal blindness in the country. Professor Tan is senior partner of Eye & Retina Surgeons, his private group practice in Singapore. He was medical director at Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC). FV Hospital has since 2006 partnered with SNEC to meet increasing demand for eye disease treatments in Vietnam. (http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/ May 23)