The Australian Keratoprosthesis Service

History of the AKS

The Australian Keratoprosthesis Service (AKS) was established at Sydney Eye Hospital and

Save Sight Institute in 2014 by Drs Greg Moloney (Cornea and Oculoplastics Specialist, Sydney),

Colin Clement (Glaucoma subspecialist), Mark Gorbatov (retinal subspecialist) and Shannon

Webber (Oral Maxillofacial Surgeon, Gold Coast).

I am honoured to continue this work leading the Australian team in collaboration with Greg (now based in Vancouver, Canada) and it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the invaluable input of Dr Peter Martin (Orbit and Oculoplastics) whose expertise has been so precious.

The AKS is a highly specialized and well resourced ophthalmic clinic servicing the bilaterally vision impaired from devastating corneal blindness where normal corneal transplantation techniques are highly likely to fail. With the support of the Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation and its donors, the service has grown from strength to strength managing this unique subset of patients from all over Australia and New Zealand since its inception.

Prior to 2014, the Boston Keratoprosthesis device had not been implanted in Australia and patients in need of the OOKP procedure had to travel to Singapore as the closest centre offering this service. This limited accessibility to help only to those who could afford to travel, and invited higher risk for complication management with time delays from travel, potentially worsening outcomes.

We were exceptionally fortunate to have the training and supervision in the foundation of the

clinic with Dr Konrad Hille of Dusseldorf, Germany, a world class pioneer in this highly

specialised area of surgery. We would like to honour and thank Dr Konrad Hille who gave so

generously of his time to share his expertise.

How to get in contact with the AKS

Patients who are potentially deemed candidates may access the service through a referral sent

to the program co-ordinators Eleena Tran at eleena.tran@sydney.edu.au or Johnathan Nguyen

at jonathan.nguyen@sydney.edu.au.

A summary of the ocular and medical history of the patient as well as their support networks

(carers who are able to attend their visits) and involvement of local treating specialists is

always extremely helpful enabling us to select candidates who are not only suitable from a

clinical perspective, but who are able to maintain the level of commitment required for the

upkeep of both of these devices.

As a minimum, in the stable and healthy state, the Boston KPRO and OOKP requires a visit to

the clinic every three months for monitoring. Additionally, an annual computed tomography of

the orbits is required of the OOKP candidates to monitor for bone resorption which can be

clinically undetectable.

Upon receipt of the referral, I will liaise with the referring clinician regarding the

potential for some of the investigatory workup to be performed locally, prior to the patient

and carer’s visit to Sydney Eye Hospital.