Blind Man Has Vision Restored at MCGHealth

Augusta, Ga. — Since he couldn’t go to Boston, Boston came to Leonard Quick.

The 80-year-old Midville man had been living with a condition called Salzmann’s Nodular Degeneration, which finally took away his sight about four years ago. His wife Betty became the designated driver and reader for the retired pastor and scholar.

But Quick had faith that his vision would be restored…that he’d be able to see his grandchildren and great-grandchildren again…that he’d be able to read his Bible, the book he has dearly loved and taught from for more than 60 years.

“I knew better days were coming, but I didn’t know how. I had heard about the work that Boston doctors were doing using prosthetic corneas. But at my age, I couldn’t visualize traveling there. Instead, God brought Boston to me through the skilled hands of a fine, young doctor,” Quick said, referring to Dr. Pankaj Gupta, who recently performed a rare cornea transplant called the Boston Keratoprosthesis that restored Quick’s vision in his left eye. The Boston KPro surgery was one of the first performed in Georgia.

“Mr. Quick was the perfect candidate. Three standard cornea transplants had failed when his eye rejected the organs, so the prosthetic eye was the answer. It was just a matter of getting the materials from Boston for the procedure,” said Dr. Gupta, Director of Cornea Services at the MCGHealth Eye Care Center. Dr. Gupta learned the Boston KPro technique from its developer Dr. Claes Dohlman at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

Only about 1,200 of these transplant surgeries have been done in the United States. “The Boston Keratoprosthesis is made of clear plastic with excellent tissue tolerance and optical properties,” Dr. Gupta said. “It consists of two parts that when fully assembled give it the shape of a collar button. The device is inserted into a corneal graft, which is then sutured into the patient’s cornea.”

“I tell people that it’s a man-made cornea and a live cornea with the center cut out of it,” said Quick. “They sandwiched these pieces together and stitched it to my eye. The human cornea holds everything intact, but it’s my man-made eye that does the seeing,” he said.

And seeing is believing for Quick. “I feel like I’m living in a whole new world. It’s instant when they do it. The day after surgery, when they took the bandage off, my sight was there. The examining room was just absolutely flooded with light, and I could see everybody in there and all the instruments and equipment. It is absolutely remarkable.”