Surgery Changes Woman's Life

Herbert Atienza
Special to Loma Linda Patch

A year after a life-changing surgery, LaQuisha Higgins holds dear something many take for granted: eyesight.

There was time when the 33-year-old Fontana resident could see almost nothing. Just crossing the street was a challenge, Higgins said.

Then she found Dr. Julio Narvaez, ophthalmologist at Loma Linda University Medical Center, medical officials said.

In December 2009, Narvaez performed a surgery known as the Boston keratoprosthesis, a type of corneal prosthetic transplant that offers hope to patients with multiple failed corneal grafts.

“I feel like I got my life back,” Higgins said.  “I’m not blind anymore.”

It was a long journey to back to the sighted world. Her vision had deteriorated due to a condition called keratoconus, a disease that causes the cornea to become cone-shaped, thin and distort. It results in severe vision loss, officials said.

Before the prosthetic transplant, surgeons had performed several corneal transplants on her right eye, medical center officials said.

A fifth transplant was unsuccessful despite her use of potent anti-rejection pills and eye-drops, officials said. Her body rejected the transplanted corneas, forcing her back into blindness, officials said.

Meantime, her eyesight continued to deteriorate. Higgins was forced to stop working.

This moved her physicians to consider the implantation of a prosthetic cornea in her right eye. In 2007, she was referred to Narvaez, officials said. Two years later Narvaez performed the surgery.

“Within one month of surgery, she was seeing 20/20 without glasses for distance vision,” Narvaez said in a written news release. “She has been able to attend college classes for the first time, as well as obtain her driver’s license. Ms. Higgins now wears glasses only for protection and for reading.”

Dr. Narvaez said the Boston keratoprosthesis, which was developed in New England, includes implanting a prosthetic cornea on patients who have already experienced corneal transplant rejection and for whom a repeat corneal transplant is not likely to succeed. He said that few centers in the country are able to offer the procedure because of the unique technical skills needed to perform the surgery and to provide the follow-up care.