Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
A California-based company is claiming that its can turn a person’s brown eyes blue using a new laser-based surgical procedure that eliminates the pigment in the ocular organs.
The clinic making the claims is Strōma Medical Corporation of Laguna Beach, and according to CNET, the experimental operation works by disrupting the melanin in the stroma, the upper layer of the iris. In darker eye colors (brown and black) the stroma contains high concentrations of this natural skin pigment, but in blue and green eyes, very little melanin is present.
Under every brown eye is a blue eye
When a person has blue-colored eyes, it is the result of something known as the Tyndall effect, which the website explains is similar to the phenomenon that makes the sky look blue. In reality, blue eyes have no pigment, and Strōma lasers to disrupt the melanin in the stroma as the patient watches a small animation roughly one foot from their face with their head stabilized.
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“The fundamental principle is that under every brown eye is a blue eye,” company chairman Gregg Homer explained to CNN. “If you take that pigment away, then the light can enter the stroma – the little fibers that look like bicycle spokes in a light eye – and when the light scatters it only reflects back the shortest wavelengths and that’s the blue end of the spectrum.”
The procedure takes about 30 seconds per eye and has already been successfully completed in a total of 37 patients from Mexico and Costa Rica, Time.com reported earlier this month. While the procedure itself takes very little time, the change from brown eyes to blue one typically takes a few weeks, as the patient’s body gradually removes the pigmented tissue from the eyes.
With just one small payment of $5,000, you can change your eye color
The cost of the procedure will be approximately $5,000 once federal health safety officials give the go-ahead for the operation to take place in the US. In the meantime, Strōma plans to conduct initial pilot clinical trials using about 20 international patients, and anticipates following that up with a larger-scale experiment involving 100 patients from multiple countries.
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Homer told Discovery News that the procedure is “incredibly safe,” but some ophthalmologists, including American Academy of Ophthalmology spokesman and University of California, Davis professor of ophthalmology Dr. Ivan Schwab said that he had concerns that the procedure could eventually lead to public health issues such as glaucoma.
Long-term problems?
“Maybe you don’t see it immediately, but 10 years down the road it could be a public health problem,” explained Dr. Schwab, who also said he was worried that it could result in infections or improper use of the equipment by doctors. “I wouldn’t completely dismiss the procedure; I’m not going to tell you it won’t work, but my biggest concern is long-term problems.”
[STORY: Brown eyes are more trustworthy, but why?]
Homer told the website that to date, none of the patients who had undergone the procedure had experienced the increased pressure that precedes glaucoma. In fact, he said, many have shown a decrease. The surgery removes pigment from the front of the iris, not the back, which is where pigment fragments can become trapped and create a blockage that leads to glaucoma.
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