Open your eyes with Karla Rugel

27 Apr 2011

Open your eyes with Karla Rugel

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Karla Rugel, a teenager who lost the sight in both eyes after an acid attack in Martos (Jaen) in 2003, managed to recover her vision in her left eye. After four complex operations performed between December 2008 and September 2009 at the IMO, she can now see again.

In two of these procedures, the surgeon, Dr Ramon Medel, managed to separate the eyelids, which had been stuck to the eye as a result of the attack, with a cul-de-sac reconstruction. A trichiasis procedure restored the normal position of the eyelashes (which had been growing back towards the eye and rubbing against the cornea) and the eyelids, which were folded inwards (entropion).

Eye reconstruction after accidents or assaults are some of the most complicated surgical procedures in oculoplastics and often have dramatic aesthetic, functional and visual results. The Karla Rugel case aroused great media attention because of the human-interest story behind it, but it is just one of the many cases treated by the Orbital and Ocular Plastic Surgery Department of the IMO.