A dog in Virginia had her eye saved thanks to the help of another furry buddy.
Susie Q found out that she had a deadly growth on her eyeball after a regular veterinary test at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital last month.
“The vet said, ‘I don’t like what I’m seeing,'” remembered Susie Q’s owner, Jim DePierro, while recounting the experience for the university’s website. “The veterinarians said Susie Q had a malignant tumor, a melanoma, on her eyeball. They’ll probably end up taking the eyeball. I almost fainted.”
Courtesy of Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine
The 2-year-old morkie poo’s go to came just hours after another dog went to the veterinarian and had their eyeball got rid of. This ended up being the ideal circumstance for Susie Q, as her growth had actually not affected the within her eye yet.
With the consent of the other dog’s owner, corneal tissue from the removed eyeball was used to help perform surgery on Susie Q. The surgical team removed the growth and used a graft from the other dog’s lost eye to replace eye tissue around the infected area. This allowed Susie Q to keep her eye.
Courtesy of Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine
“It was serendipity that a dog came the night before that lost its eye,” Daniel Rothschild Ph.D., a resident involved in the surgery, explained. “We try to do the same thing with corneal tissue transplant as we do in people, but in dogs, we don’t have donor tissue. The stars aligned in this case.”
The procedure was led by the hospital’s assistant director, Ian Herring M.S. “I’ve done this surgery a number of times, but I never before used corneal tissue from another dog to do the repair,” Herring said.
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Following the surgery, Susie Q is in good health and has had actually a positive healing experience.
“They did an amazing job,” DePierro informed the university’s website. “Virginia Tech has been fabulous. I never thought that anyone would take the time to save the eye.”
