Puneeth Rajkumar became the third member of his family to donate his eyes, after his father, Dr Rajkumar, in 2006 and his mother Parvathamma in 2017.
Four youths have got a second lease of life due to Kannada film star Puneeth Rajkumar, whose eyes were donated after his death on October 29. The recipients, three males and one female, underwent eye transplant surgery in the last two days at Narayana Nethralaya.
Puneeth Rajkumar became the third member of his family to donate his eyes, after his father, Dr Rajkumar, in 2006 and his mother Parvathamma in 2017.
Puneeth, son of matinee idol Dr Rajkumar, passed away at the age of 46 after suffering a cardiac arrest on Friday.
After he was declared dead, Puneeth Rajkumar’s brother Raghavendra called Dr Rajkumar Eye Bank, which is run by Narayana Nethralaya, to collect the actor’s eyes.
According to sources in the hospital, each eye of the late actor was used to treat two patients. The superior and deeper layers of the cornea were separated. The superior layer was transplanted to two patients who had superficial corneal disease, and only the deeper layer was transplanted to patients with endothelial or deep corneal layer disease.
Dr Bhujang Shetty, chairman, Narayana Nethralaya, said all four patients were between 20-30 years of age. The transplant was done by a team of five doctors.
“Usually, two corneas from a deceased individual are transplanted into two corneal blind patients. But, we used Puneeth’s corneal tissues to restore vision for four different patients,” he said.
The four youths were on the waiting list for over six months as eye donations had stopped completely due to Covid-19. The hospital could only do 200 transplant surgeries per month.
Two different techniques of lamellar keratoplasty were used. The first is Deep Anterior Lamellar Keratoplasty (DALK) — wherein the outer or superficial part of cornea was transplanted in two young patients with corneal dystrophy and keratoconus. The second technique is Descemet’s Stripping Endothelial Keratoplasty (DSEK), wherein the inner or deeper layer of the cornea is transplanted in two patients with corneal endothelial decompensation affecting the innermost layer of the cornea.
Furthermore, the limbal rim (white part of the eye near the circumference of the cornea), which was not used for the transplants, has been sent to the laboratory to generate “Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells” for potential use in patients with Limbal Stem Cell deficiency, chemical injuries, acid burns and other serious disorders.