Giving Gift of Sight: N.C. Eye Bank provides most corneas of any in world

Dean Vavra feels lucky to be able to see the world through two healthy eyes.

Vavra's mother, grandmother and four brothers suffer from granular dystrophy, a rare, inherited disease that causes eye pain and lesions that obstruct vision. The disease strikes before the age of 40 and leaves its victims blind.

"Granular dystrophy is painful blindness," he said.

Seeing his family suffer makes Vavra's work as the executive director of the N.C. Eye Bank even more personal. The eye bank plays a key role in restoring sight to the blind and vision-impaired.

Vavra watched as his brothers began experiencing poor vision and pain -- feeling that their eyes had been poked or irritated -- as early as age 12. The symptoms only worsened with time.

The most common treatment for the disease is surgery to replace the cornea, a windowlike surface on the front of the eye that focuses vision.

Eye banks make these transplants possible by processing donated corneas and supplying them to surgeons.

Vavra, who served as an eye technician in the U.S. Army for 14 years, now helps thousands of people improve or regain their sight.

The eye bank provided corneas for 3,440 transplants in 2008, the most of any eye bank in the world, according to the Eye Bank Association of America.

Its strength is partly the result of a state law passed last year. Under the law, the heart symbol on someone's driver's license is considered binding consent to donate organs, including eye tissue. Before the law was passed, such groups as the eye bank had to get permission from the family to get eye tissue.

North Carolina has the eighth-highest rate of organ-donor registration in the country, according to a recent report from Donate Life America. People can sign up to be donors through the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles when getting or renewing their driver's license.

Bob Russ, the eye bank's director of human resources, said that the expansion of opportunities to sign up for organ donation is one of the reasons why more people have agreed to be donors.

When a potential donor dies, the eye bank's clock starts ticking.

To be used in a transplant, the corneas must be stored within 24 hours of the donor's death.

"It's a very time-sensitive process," Russ said. "We are also working with families who have lost a loved one," he said, which requires comforting words in a moment of urgency.

Despite the law, the eye bank contacts each family to gain their approval and answer questions about donation before taking the corneal tissue.

After retrieving the tissue, the eye bank preserves the corneas in an antibiotic solution, and lab technicians inspect them for scarring or cell damage.

When the lab approves the corneas for transplantation, the bank ships them to surgeons for operations here and abroad. A surgery schedule written on a dry-erase board in the eye bank's office lists the donations' destinations, which range from South Dakota to Saudi Arabia.

Terry Semchysyn, an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the Duke Eye Center in Winston-Salem, said that the eye bank is responsive to his requests and helps him match tissue to patient needs.

Before he performs a transplant, Semchysyn calls the eye bank to ensure that the tissue he requested is healthy. If a patient does not require a full transplant, the eye bank trims enough of the cornea to treat the patient's particular condition, which shortens recovery time, he said.

The eye bank also works with Vision Share, a nonprofit eye-bank cooperative, to distribute corneas outside of the United States, Semchysyn said.

Corneas deemed unfit to transplant are used for education and research.

In addition to clinical services, the eye bank also provides some relief for those who have lost a family member, he said. "It's a positive way to view the passing of a loved one."

Penny Labrecque, the eye bank's family-care coordinator, said that the transplants give people whose vision has deteriorated a second chance.

"It changes their quality of life," she said. "For the first time, grandparents are seeing their grandchildren."

Labrecque, who received a kidney transplant from her sister in 1993, said that efforts to sustain organ and tissue donation are often overlooked.

"Unless somebody in your family has been affected by it, I don't think it comes up in conversation," she said.

Labrecque said that the demand for corneas is likely to increase as baby boomers get older and begin to lose vision, making the work of eye banks even more crucial.

"People need to know that we're making a difference," she said.

■ Christian Kloc can be reached at 727-7270 or at ckloc@wsjournal.com.

To donate

In North Carolina, people can sign up to be organ donors through the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles. The licenses of those who are donors are marked with a heart.

Donors should tell their family members about their wishes.

In eye-tissue donations, disease, injury or infection in eyes disqualifies them for transplantation, but they can still be used for education and research purposes.

For more information about eye donation, call or visit the N.C. Eye Bank at 765-0932 or go to www.nceyebank.org.