Ophthalmology

Restoring Brennan's Vision

Diagnosed with a cataract at 12 months, Brennan Hughes-Shiverick needed surgery to extract the clouded lens in his left eye. Cataract surgery on babies is extremely difficult, but untreated cataracts prevent the developing brain from learning to see. Standard treatment for adult cataracts, a lens implant, is avoided in such young children because inflammation and implant rejection are common.

Children’s ophthalmologist Kathryn  Colby , MD, PhD, saved a baby from partial blindness by removing a rare, non-cancerous tumor and surgically inserting an artificial cornea—along with a permanent plastic contact lens.

Ophthalmologists at Children’s developed the Pediatric Vision Scanner (PVS), a device that in a quick 2.5 second scan of the eyes can detect strabismus, amblyopia and other serious eye conditions in children as young as 2. The device looks like a hand-held camera and scans the eyes' retinas with a low-power laser to take a series of important readings. [read more]