Five year old Noor from Iraq lives with a birth defect called “Peter's Anomaly” which robbed her of her sight at birth. Due to the ongoing war in Iraq, any chance of specialized eye surgery is nearly impossible.

Noor was discovered by U.S. military doctors by chance; it happened through a U.S. military helicopter shooting incident which killed her uncle. Noor’s father has been a continued support of coalition forces which brought her in contact with Lt. Colonel Dr. Hee-Choon Lee who diagnosed Noor’s congenital birth defect. Colonel Lee told Noor’s story to the Eye Defects Research Foundation which arranged through several specialists to put Noor on a plane bound for Rochester.

A team of doctors at the University of Rochester Eye Institute led by Dr. James Aquavella will implant a little device into Noor's right eye called a “Boston Keratoprosthesis” or an artificial cornea.

"I think she has a shot, a good chance at having some improvement in vision," says Dr. Aquavella, “in all probability our efforts are going to be focused on one eye, the eye that has the best chance of being helped. At age five, we know that her vision is going to be depressed somehow but how much is it going to be depressed.” .

Artificial corneas are routinely implanted in adults successfully, often resulting in 20-20 vision, but pediatric patients like Noor are trickier.

“It's like opening a Pandora's box, you're not certain what you're going to be finding, but you need to be prepared and your team needs to be prepared,”
says Aquavella.

The surgery on Monday could take anywhere from one to three hours. If all goes well Noor could begin to see for the first time, the next day.

“So I would hope that she will be able to see light and focus on light, even the first moving and even perhaps look at her mother's face and focus on fingers,” says Aquavella.  

If the operation is a success, Noor will then go through months of exercising her eye by following her mother, playing for example or even watching television. She will only be in Eochester for one week and then be monitored by a team of doctors both here and in the near east. Noor's implant is being donated by the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary at Harvard, the surgeons in Eochester are donating their services and Bausch and Lomb is paying for Noor's hospital services.