In today’s medical era, there seems to be a fix for just about everything that ails us. For those who were born without or lost a limb, there are artificial arms and legs that have been around for decades.

In today’s medical era, there seems to be a fix for just about everything that ails us. For those who were born without or lost a limb, there are artificial arms and legs that have been around for decades. For those who have lost an ear, the medical community has found a way to regenerate an ear on the back of a lab rat! But what happens if you have an injury or a medical condition to your iris or your eye? Well, believe it or not there are companies that have created an artificial iris implant to even fix that!

Conditions such as Aniridia, (the absence of the iris), Coloboma (the iris has a hole in it), Ocular Albinism (lack of pigment in the eye) or eye trauma have prompted medical companies to come up with a solution to these conditions, and just like everything else, these solutions evolve into better and better answers to the problem.

The procedure basically involves taking an artificial iris implant that is placed and attached in the anterior chamber of the eye to cover the natural iris which has the medical condition. It is very similar to cataract surgery that has been performed for decades.

There are 3 companies that make artificial iris implants on the market today.

The 1st is Ophtec from the Netherlands who have created an artificial iris implant that corrects such medical conditions as aniridia and coloboma. Ophtec’s artificial iris implant is approved in Europe with a CE Mark but not FDA approved although has been used in compassionate FDA cases in the past. Ophtec’s implant are only used for medical purposes. They have been around for the past 25 years and have been very successful in the ophthalmic market.

The 2nd company is Human Optics from Germany and founded in 1999 that created the ArtificialIris, which is fully customized and hand-made colour composition for each patient with it’s structure closely matching the appearance of the natural iris. This company produces an artificial iris implant that is used only to help with partial and full aniridia cases. Human Optics’ ArtificialIris implants have been successful and although not FDA approved, artificial iris implants have been available in Europe for over 10 years and are available in the U.S. on a compassionate use basis for specific cases.

Finally there is BRIGHTOCULAR, the latest artificial iris implant invented by a United States company in 2010, that has developed, improved and ultimately, evolved the artificial iris implant. The BrightOcular implant is manufactured in a registered ISO 13485 certified facility in France, using FDA approved biocompatible material that can be utilized to not only corrects such medical conditions as Coloboma, Aniridia, Heterochromia and Ocular Albinism, but is also used cosmetically to change eye color. BrightOcular’s procedure does not require sutures and the BrightOcular implant has a U.S. patented design that prevents any increase in eye pressure which has been known to be an issue for other artificial iris implants.

Resources:
Lisa Mendez is the author of this article on eye color change procedure.
Find more information, about eye color change surgery here


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