Born with cataracts

Born with cataracts in both his eyes, five-month-old Shammi was operated on and his vision restored at Bombay’s Jaslok Hospital where Dr Phiroze Patel is coordinator, department of ophthalmology. The patient, Shammi, son of Shafiq Khan, a tailor from Rae Bareilly, now looks at his mother when she calls out and laughs when a colorful toy is dangled in front of him, reported Sunday Times of India (STOI) on October 4, 2009. The parents brought the infant to Bombay for treatment, "but we were so scared as the child was so small,” Khan said. His older son had also developed a cataract in one eye when he was four years old and had a lens implant placed last year.

Dr Phiroze Patel: man of vision

"In my 30-year practice, this is only the second time that I have operated on a child so young,” Patel informed Parsiana over the telephone. Special intraocular lenses were required because a child’s eyes, though fully developed in the frontal area, continue to elongate and grow at the back, but this was managed, the doctor said.

"We think Shammi’s is a congenital case as his brother also had it. We removed the natural lenses from the child’s eyes and put in new ones. Now he can see clearly with both eyes. Cataract is very common among the elderly, but it is rare in kids,” Patel told STOI. A surgery was performed on the left eye on August 28 and the child kept under observation for a while before the second operation was done on September 30.