Dean Maxime Toraubally was born on March 6 in Mauritius. He seldom opened his eyes. But when he did, he had enlarged eyeballs, with the pupil (the black part of the eye) stretching to more than three fourth of its usual size.
Dean suffered from congenital glaucoma, a one in a 15,000 medical condition among less than one-month-old babies. Bulged eyes, excessive tears and thinning of the iris — all due to incorrect development of the eye’s drainage system.
“Like blood pressure, every eye has intraocular pressure. In glaucoma, the watery fluid called aqueous humour flows into the eye, but does not exit. This increases the eye pressure and leads to blindness,” says S.A. Hussain Naqvi, head of medical services at Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital.
Enlarged eye
“It is difficult to find the drainage canal of the eye, as the enlarged eye misleads any expert’s judgement. The age of the baby is also a huge challenge,” says Dr. Naqvi, who operated upon Dean and restored his normal vision on May 31.
Torauballys Nadiir and Sandy, Dean’s parents flew down to the hospital after the overseas branch referred the case here.
“We were worried. We wasted a week’s time in Mauritius attending paper work. But thanks to the Ministry of Health and this hospital, its a whole new life for us.” The surgery was sponsored by the Ministry of Health and Quality of Life of Mauritius.
A study by H.A. Quigley and A.T. Broman at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2005, put the worldwide number of people with glaucoma for 2010 and 2020 at 60.5 million and 79.6 million respectively, while the numbers in India would be a whopping 16 million by 2020.
M. Vamshidhar, consultant and head of medical services at the hospital, said the treatment cost for glaucoma in India is between ₹20,000 and ₹30,000 per eye.
