PALERMO (ITALPRESS) – Corneal transplants performed in Sicily are growing year after year. The year 2024 should close with at least a dozen more transplants than last year when there were 241. Data from the Regional Transplant Center (related, however, to the end of October) speak of 230 transplants so far, but November and December operations are still to be included. In 2022 there had been 209 while in 2021 (the year after the pandemic outbreak) there was a record 267 transplants while the previous year there had been 175. Also according to Crt data, the center that carries out the largest number of transplants is the Candela Treatment Center in Palermo (this year the 100 transplants will be surpassed) followed by the University Hospital of Catania with 71 transplants carried out in the current year until October, at the third step of the podium another facility from Catania the G.B. Morgagni Clinical and Diagnostic Center with 53 interventions. For at least a decade it has been the Candela Clinic in Palermo that has carried out the largest number of transplants thanks to the work of Flavio Cucco, an ophthalmologist from Palermo who works at the facility. Transplantation takes place, in most cases, in “One Day Surgery,” envisioned as optimal for performing surgery and invasive procedures that can be performed safely even without the need for particularly prolonged postoperative observation, while guaranteeing, however, a precautionary overnight stay. “In Italy,” Cucco explains, “corneal transplantation has been widely performed since 1990, the year in which the first regional cornea bank was established at the behest of Giovanni Rama, chief of ophthalmology in Mestre (Venice). Since then, other cornea banks have slowly sprung up.” “Since 2000, about 5,000 cornea transplants a year have been done in Italy, a number that corresponds to the national need. Ours is among the first nations in Europe both for corneas harvested and for transplants performed,” the doctor continues further. Cucco worked precisely with Rama in Veneto before returning to Sicily as head of the ophthalmology service at the Candela Treatment Center: “I brought my experience gained in this type of surgery. For years the ophthalmology department of the clinic has achieved the result of being the first eye center in all of Sicily in terms of the number of corneal transplants performed, carrying out, depending on the clinical indication, the appropriate surgical technique (perforating or lamellar transplantation).” But more could be done in Sicily: up to 600 transplants per year would be possible. “We probably do not intercept all the potential individuals who need transplantation either because there is a lack of surgeons or they decide to go outside the region at a cost to the regional system. We need a greater culture of transplantation,” Cucco explains, “Sicilians are still generous but we need to make an extra effort.”
– photo: Cucco ophthalmology office
(ITALPRESS).
