A 91-year-old man has made history by becoming the first patient in England to receive an artificial cornea.Cecil Farley faced a year-long wait for sight-saving surgery after a human cornea transplant failed, but his surgeon offered him the chance to skip the queue by using an artificial one.Medics hope that one day the new artificial corneas could reduce the need for human cornea donations.The new product replaces the inner part of the cornea.It has been likened to a contact lens and is surgically attached to the eye by a single stitch and put in place with a gas bubble.Mr Farley detailed the "debilitating" struggle he faced before the surgery, when he had no vision in his right eye.
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00:00This artificial cornea put in in February and clinically we can already see that his
00:29cornea is so much less swollen than it was, improving in shape and improving in clarity.
00:35So although he's got multiple issues in that eye, he's already aware that his vision is
00:40improving in that eye and that is continuing.
01:00I think it makes your life fuller if the eye works properly, otherwise you're sort of shut
01:08down, you can't watch the telly properly, you can't do anything properly and you don't realise
01:12how debilitating that is until you sort of get into it. I'm pleased I sort of said go ahead and do it.
01:22I see a future where this may become the norm and I'm talking probably maybe 10-20 years time,
01:30this may become the norm where we don't need a human cornea and we can just take one out of the box.