Cataract Patients Undergo Eye Surgery On Lifeline Express (Photo : Getty Images)
The Peking University Third Hospital would file a lawsuit against Tianjin Jingming New Technological Development Co for supplying the hospital with medical gas that caused patients undergoing eye surgery to go blind on one eye instead.
The medical gas, or perflutren, is used as a temporary filler during the procedure. However, when the batch of perflutren was applied on 59 patients, 45 suffered eye injuries in June. Eighteen of the patients became blind on the left eye, reported China National Radio.
The incident led the China Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA) to stop the sale of the medical gas and use of the same batch the destroyed the vision of some patients. Tainjin Jingming is the only registered supplier of perflutren in China.
The gas, explained Wang Enpu, a professor who specializes in eye surgery at the Air Force General Hospital, is used as a temporary filler to puff up the hollow part of the eye during surgery. It helps ensure the surgery would go smoothly and disappears after the procedure is completed. It is used for procedures such as vitrectomies and to correct retinal detachment.
But Wang added that only experienced doctors are capable of properly using the gas for eye procedures because it expands after the gas enters the eye. It is an alternative to silicon oil which needs to be removed after the surgery, otherwise it could cause side effects such as increased eye pressure.
Besides Peking University Hospital, the Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University in Jiangsu Province used also perflutren on 26 more eye patients, but it came from another batch. However, five patients also suffered became partially blind, reported Global Times.
The FDA send two teams to the two hospitals which used the medical gas and ruled out irregularities during the surgeries as a cause of the injuries. The manufacturer said that the gas has no side effects reported since Tianjin Jingming was established in 2001.
