New Surgery May Save Young Figure Skater's Eyesight

BOSTON (CBS) - Imagine you're a teenage figure skater with an illness that could take away your sight. Well, exciting new research that started today in Boston may offer this young person, and many others, a chance to avoid that.

Fifteen-year-old Adrian Huertas of Lincoln knows his way around the rink. A figure skater since he was seven, Adrian has Olympic dreams, but his eyesight is in jeopardy. Without a special contact lens his right eye, he sees a blurry world. "I can still kind of see out of my right eye and I can still kind of sense what's around me, and I wouldn't want to be totally blind out of it," says Adrian.

Adrian has Keratoconus, a disease that changes the shape of his cornea which reduces his eyesight. "Over time that can get worse, causing your vision to not be very good," he says. In fact it can progress to the level of legal blindness. Many people with the disease need cornea transplants.

This afternoon Adrian became the first person to undergo a special procedure as part of a new clinical trial at Mass. Eye and Ear Infirmary. Dr. Kathryn Colby performed surgery on Adrian. It's called "collagen cross-linking."

"What the treatment does is provides bonds between the molecules of collagen to strengthen it," says Dr. Colby. And that firms up the cornea, stopping the progressive changes that can rob sight.

"It won't restore my vision, but it will keep it from getting worse," says Adrian. Adrian's mother, Debra Peattie, has been searching for a treatment since he was diagnosed three years ago, but was frustrated to find that even though the procedure has been used in Europe for years, it was unavailable in the states.

"It makes you feel a little powerless. Which is why I'm thrilled to be sitting here today. It's been a long three years and I'm delighted that this can be done," says Peattie. And if the trial results mirror those in Europe, this procedure could become standard treatment, and young people like Adrian will be free to follow their dreams. Adrian will have to wait a month or two to see how today's surgery works, but optimism is high.

Keratoconus is a fairly common disease. About 1 in 2000 people in the United States has the diagnosis.