How do you feel about the donors?

[Andrew MacLean]

Ah well, if they already exist in the world of CSI: Miami, it wou't be long before they exist in the real world!

When President Kennedy saw the Bond film "goldfinger", he noticed that Bond had a device in his car that tracked his progress through a virtual map of the area. He asked J Edgar Hoover if the United States had an instrument that would do that job. "No, Mr President," Hoover replied, "but we will!"

The result: the global positioning system.

In Star Trek, Spock used to carry around bits of flat plastic that he notched into his computer to add memory and function: this gave rise to the floppy disc. also in Star trek they carried in their pockets little communicators, my mobile phoen does much more than they did.

The real world does mimic fiction, over and over again. so if they can count cells mechanically in CSI, it will not be long before they do so for real.

Andrew

[John Smith]

Well, counting cells must be like counting people.

About 10 years ago, a friend of mine was involved in the installation of a people-counter at a busy Underground station (Bank, I think). It was revolutionary at the time, as it was a "neural net", which learned by itself what people looked like.

Basically, it was fed a few photos (input) and some numbers (wanted output) - the numbers being the actual manual count of people from the given photo.

After being fed about 10-20 photos, the system turned out to be amazingly accurate. It soon leaned not to count any people on the track (like on a train) as there were normally no people there. It was giving a figure from 0-1000 accurate to within about 1%, which is certainly good enough for London Transport to know whether a platform is overcrowed or not,

Surely the same process could eb used for cell counting?

[Louise Pembroke]

I am the proud owner of the device that Spock used [replica] for tracking alien life forms and the flip-open communicator & medical tricorder with hand held scanner. All complete with flashing lights and sound effects.
Life is much easier on the starship, I just teleport myself down here occasionally to check on you humans.

[jayuk]

If I am not mistaken, they basically count X number of cells in a region covering X , and then just do an average over the total amount

Like cells / square inch...however wouldnt be square inch in this case obviously.

[Prue B]

Im bringing up an old topic but would like to comment on a number of issues, bought up in this topic.
1) I dont know my donor details, and am glad because for me my donors were every person and family special enough to make the sacrafice. I live in Oz and it is a bit different here. I was done privatley and made an appt 3 weeks in advance for my first op and rang 2 days before and confirmed, turned up and it was done. A week before my second op my opthal rang and said he had 2 corneas could I be there tomorrow. I said yes (duh) then he rang back and said they were not suitable. I rang 2 days before my op was scheduled and there were no suitable cornes, nor the next day, on the morning of the op the surgery was postponed, and it was done 2 days later. this was a more daunting experience as I knew I was waiting for a death.
My sister was told hers came from a young motor cycle accident victim.

2 NFCJD. My husband is a veterinarian and works for the ag department here. All the DVOs (District Veterinary officers) in his region have different areas they are in charge of. pauls is TSE's (basically all spongiform encephalitis') We have not had a "mad cow" case here, but there is a lot of testing to keep our BSE free rating. He said the thing with NFCJD is it occurs in a different area of the brain than regular CJD. It occurs in exactly the same part of the brain as BSE does in cows. This being said it was expected that there would be a huge increase in cases in Britian and this has so far not happened, so the belief is the risk was less than anticipated. Also certain parts of the cow are more likely to carry it than others. Cooked steak for example is unlikely to give you NFCJD, but eating salivary glands is a much higher risk, or the brains. otherwise I can shed no more light on this issue.

3 Corneal age. In Australia they will accept suitable corneas from donors no older than 100.

[Andrew MacLean]

Pure!

reat to ehar from the early antipodean Autumn! How are you?

Thanks for the posting about the situation with grafts in australia.

How have you been, post graft?

Andrew

[Prue B]

My left eye was grafted 10 years ago last October and has never given me a moments worry, it actually reads at 6/6 uncorrectd, but I wear glasses with some correction for my Left eye, because otherwise my script would be out of whack.
My Right eye is 10 in August. (on my sisters wedding anniversarry) It has had one partial rejection and keeps going out of focus, I have had a few refractive and astigmatic keratotomys on it and they help each time but it veers of course again. Last year when faced with more surgery I took the glasses option. I needed a break. My vision is 6/6 corrected, so I think I am pretty lucky really.

[Andrew MacLean]

Well done!

With correction you have bilateral 6/6 vision: I'd count that a successful outcome of surgery.

You are a good advert for intervention!

Yours aye

Andrew

[Prue B]

I was intolerant to lenses, after a poor fitting that the fitter refused to change, and perservering. He thought being able to see my nose clearly from 3 inches was a good outcome. I felt not seeing the stairwell from 2 feet was a poor outcome. I tried RPGs, I tried soft lenses, I tried piggy backs. For me they were a total disaster, they used to flip and the big lens would be on top and the rpg on the bottom, every time I wore them. When I had my first transplant I was 6/60 corrected out of my best eye. My opthalmologist said I think your quality of life is being affected it is time to do something. I never looked back. My sister was grafted earlier than me, because they had had a mindset change, quality of life mattered, so they were not waiting for scarring any more.
I love my opthalmologist. He is not modest, but does not drag either. He is proud of what he has achieved for me, and my sister, and sure of his ability. Corneal transplants are a major part of his work, but I saw him for about 8 years before he decided it was time to operate. Finding someone you trust is so important.

[Anne Klepacz]

I have now got a reply from the Blood Transfusion Service (I'm still waiting to hear from UK Transplant). BTS wrote as follows:
Regretfully the Blood Services in the United Kingdom have been advised that individuals who have had a corneal transplant should not donate blood because of the remote possibility of transmission of Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease.
There is no confirmation that CJD is transmitted by blood transfusion and the risk of acquiring this disease from corneal grafting is extremely remote. However, a great deal of research is being undertaken by many different organisations and until more is known, the Blood Service is being extra cautious as we always are in such matters.

I hope this clarifies things for everyone. I'll post the reply from UK Transplant as soon as I get it.
Anne