‘Known more formally as osteo-odonto keratoprosthesis (OOKP), the surgery has been performed successfully in a handful of countries over the last five decades…

Developed in Italy in the 1960s, tooth-in-eye surgery is a multi-step process that starts with extracting one of a patient’s canine teeth. Surgeons then shape the tooth into a rectangle, drill a hole into it and glue a plastic optical lens inside the hole. They then surgically embed the tooth into the patient’s cheek so that a layer of tissue can grow around it. During the same procedure, they also cut a flap of skin from inside the patient’s cheek and surgically attach the skin to the front of the patient’s eyeball.

Then, they wait. Three months later, if all goes to plan, they embark on the second phase of the operation. They pull back the flap of skin from the eye, then remove any previously damaged tissue, like the lens and the iris. Next, they remove the tooth from the patient’s cheek and surgically embed it into the eyeball. They then lay the flap of skin back over the eyeball and cut a small hole for the patient to see out of.

When the multi-step procedure is complete, patients have a pink tissue with a black dot in the middle where their eye used to be. “It won’t look like a normal eye… The eye will look pink with a small dark circle in the middle.”

The patient’s vision usually comes back within a month of the second phase of the surgery…. Afterward, patients can’t see perfectly—they have a narrower field of vision, similar to peering through a porthole—but they can usually resume some of the activities they had to stop when they went blind. One woman in Australia started skiing again, reports CBC Radio’s Sheena Goodyear.

Surgeons use teeth because of their strength and durability. Teeth are made of dentin, which is one of the hardest substances in the body. And, since they are part of the patient’s own body to begin with, teeth are not typically rejected after the surgery.

“We are trying to really just replace a clear window on the front of the eye… The tooth is the perfect structure to hold a focusing piece of plastic or a telescope for the patient to see through…’ (Sarah Kuta *via Smithsonian *)