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Comment by throwawaycities | Hacker News Reader

Oddly I was always under the impression that eyes were the most commonly harvested organ from organ donors.

Apparently I was wrong and it wasn’t the entire eye but the cornea.

Cornea transplants can successfully restore eyesight in certain patients and it is common because the cornea doesn’t present the same tissue rejections as organs.

Just posting this in case I wasn’t alone in my misunderstanding.

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Yep, I have two transplanted corneas, from ~25 and ~30 years ago. No anti-rejection medication needed after (IIRC) 12 months, unlike every other organ, where you need it forever. The cornea (the clear window right at the front of your eye) isn't connected to a blood supply, and gets its oxygen from tears. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corneal_transplantation

You're right about the blood supply, but it gets oxygen direct from the atmosphere, not from tears.

https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/mobile/2015/06/25/are-there...

This is why people with corneal transplants must be very cautious about wearing contact lenses.

I have a transplanted cornea too (along with an implanted contact lens in the same eye), took me from being unable to resolve detail at any distance to being pretty much 20/20

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornea#Structure

(Couldn't find a reference in your link, this discusses it in the first few sentences)

((Also, why does mobile wikipedia not have any way to get the contents tab, for linking? I get hiding it by default.. but why not have it available?!))

Indeed, because we haven’t yet figured out how to successfully reintegrate the nerves. So even if the actual eye is transplanted, there will not be vision.

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