Amazingly, it’s a method that’s been around since the 60s: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis
this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2025
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Details and video (warning: very, very graphic!) of the surgery can be found here:
https://www.aao.org/education/clinical-video/technique-of-ookp-surgery-osteo-odonto-keratoprost
- American Academy of Opthalmology
That is THE CRAZIEST surgery I have ever heard of. And I've studied the development of heart surgery. God damn.
The worst part is the canine tooth harvesting. Sheesh! I'm still not sure why the tooth and not some other piece of bone, but here we are.
I wondered that as well. With normal bone there's a cortical layer on the outside - solid/dense, and a cancellous core that's kind of spongy. Teeth are similar, but I don't know much about what makes them different from regular bone other than the enamel which doesn't appear to be a factor here since they shave all that off anyway.
Since they're just sticking in a chunk of tooth with a hole drilled in it, it wouldn't be able to open or close like an iris... functionally all I can tell they're doing is inserting a fixed aperture for light to pass through, so my question is why bother with a biologic prosthesis in the first place? Bone or tooth both seem like a lot of unnecessary* steps when we could just do basically a cataract surgery and replace the lens with an otherwise normal synthetic lens prosthesis that we use all the time; except with an opaque ring made of something stable like a titanium foil which would provide that same fixed aperture.
*I'm just a tech, and I've never done one of these in person, and intraoperatively is when I get to pick surgeons' brains about all the why's behind the operation. So, don't put any weight into it seeming unnecessary to me - I'm sure there's a reason, it's just over my head at this time.
To combat rejection would be my only thought.
Is that a factor with synthetics? Even with things like cadeveric cartilage grafts, they're so heavily treated prior to implantation that they're pretty much just innate... there's nothing to really reject. Synthetics I'd assume are even less so - cataract surgeries are super common, like millions done every year, and I've never seen a patient come back for a revision because of a reaction to or rejection of the synthetic lens.
I think they're just acrylic or silicone depending on the product.
So... basically one of those with a ring of titanium sandwiched in the middle of it?
Actually, I just remembered the answer to most "well why don't they just ?" questions: money. Bad investment to research and develop a prosthesis that might get like 2 orders per year. Boo.
Eye of ~~Truth~~ Tooth
Edit: Article details the basics of the procedure and why using the patient's own tooth is good (less chance of rejection) but doesn't explain how it actually works. I'm hella curious about how a flattened tooth with a lens in it can help a blind person see again.
It's a lens
Dude must be so sick of hearing "Did they use an eye tooth?"
What the fuck is an eye tooth?
Your canines, so called because an optic nerve runs near them and can cause brain freezes and similar effects when they get chilled.
I've never thought to wonder why that happens, and that explains why I get those more often than my spouse (my canines are huge, especially relative to theirs).
That's the name for your upper canine teeth.
But... They do lmfao.