Lucknow, March 1 (IANS) The Prosthodontics Department of the King George’s Medical University (KGMU) now provides artificial eye (ocular prosthesis), restoring not only the defect but also the lost confidence of patients, who have lost their eyeball due to retinoblastoma, a childhood cancer.

Prof Pooran Chand, HoD, Department of Prosthodontics said that dentistry is not confined to problems of teeth and oral structures but also includes prosthesis of the eye, nose, and ears.”

“Retinoblastoma is troubling an average of 2000 people in the country every year. In our OPD we get two cases a week,” he said.

The department is providing the artificial eye for a maximum of Rs 1000, which in the private sector will cost up to Rs 25K.

“We provide the facility free of cost to cancer patients,” said Prof. Pooran Chand.

Another medical expert, Prof. Arvind Tripathi said that maxillofacial prosthodontics should be treated as a separate branch of prosthodontics, and training programmes should be set up for it in different states of India.

Prof. Pooran Chand said that patients with missing facial parts were considered a bad omen in certain places, even in a developing nation like ours.

"Maxillofacial prosthesis gave such patients a new lease of life by improving their aesthetics and mental state," he said.

He said that patients suffering from retinoblastoma and other cancers, infections like mucormycosis, and traumatic injuries often underwent surgical removal of the eye and the neighbouring structures.