Conference on GIOL technique to help cataract patient held

Ahmedabad, Jan 7 (PTI) A two-day conference for Glued Intraocular Lens (GIOL) technique, was inaugurated here today to teach this method to the ophthalmologists for removal of blindness caused due to cataract. This technique is applicable in complicated cataract cases where glue is used to fix an intraocular lens. "In India there are 85 million blind people out of whom 55 per cent have lost their vision due to cataract. Out of these 55 per cent, a substantial number of patients suffer from blindness as proper intraocular lens (IOL) cannot be fitted in their eyes due to complications," Dr Amar Agarwal, CMD of Agarwal eye hospital from Chennai said. "In complicated cataract cases as IOL cannot be fitted the patient are partially blind as they have to wear very thick glasses," he said. "We in Chennai five years back developed GIOL technique. In this technique, the glue is not a common glue, but it is made from the blood tissues of patients itself to fix the lens," he further said. "Generally technology transfer is from Western countries to India, but in the case of GIOL, now countries like USA and Canada have also started adopting it," Agarwal said. "Our aim is to spread this technique to various states to help blind people and improve their quality of life. So we are organising such conference in various states. Over 350 ophthalmologists have participated in this conference and we will teach them the GIOL technique," he said.