Our History
In 1957 a Perry Oklahoma funeral home operator, Bill Parker, watched an Oklahoma City eye doctor remove bandages from a 22-year-old mother who had never seen her husband or young child. The woman had received a corneal transplant, an operation to repair the damaged front portion of her eye. According to Bill, “When the doctor removed the bandages, he didn’t need to ask her if she could see. You could tell by her expression when she looked at her family.”

Bill, a member of the Oklahoma Perry Lions Club convinced club members to start an effort to stamp out impaired vision caused by eye disease. The club launched a drive to work with Lions across the state to establish the Oklahoma Lions Eye Bank in 1957.

Our Mission
The mission of the Oklahoma Lions Eye Bank (OLEB) is to (1) provide cornea tissue of the highest quality for cornea transplant (2) strictly comply with Medical Standards and FDA guidelines for the recovery, evaluation and distribution of tissue (3) educate and encourage Oklahomans about the need for organ, eye and tissue donation.

Organ Donations
A Certified Eye Bank Technician must retrieve the cornea within a six-hour period after the death of the donor. Donor screening including medical history, serology results, cornea evaluation and other relevant information must be completed before cornea tissue is released for surgery. When the cornea becomes available, the eye bank notifies the surgeon that has the next patient on the eye bank waiting list. The surgeon accepts the tissue and contacts the recipient to schedule the corneal transplant. If the cornea cannot be placed locally, the eye bank will contact other eye banks to export the cornea tissue.

Since the establishment of the Oklahoma Lions Eye Bank, over 18,500 corneas have been donated resulting in approximately 15,000 successful corneal transplant surgeries. Corneas that are not suitable for transplantation are use to provide sclera for additional eye procedures and for ocular research.

In 1961, the Eye Bank Association of America (EBAA) was formed and the Oklahoma Lions Eye Bank became a charter member. The EBAA is a nonprofit organization consisting of 160 eye banks dedicated to the restoration of sight through the promotion and advancement of eye banking. The EBAA requires strict medical standards for membership and provides education and certification programs for individual technicians, eye bank directors, and medical directors. The OLEB is inspected and recertified by the EBAA every three years. The Oklahoma Lions Eye Bank, as a charter member of the EBAA, strives to assume a leadership role in the local transplant community and represent equitable and objective interests of patients, donor families, physicians, and the citizens of Oklahoma.

About Corneal Transplants
First performed in 1905, the corneal transplant is the oldest organ transplant procedure currently performed. Over 45,000 people receive the gift of sight each year due to a corneal transplant. Compare this to the combined total of all other organ transplants in a given year of approximately 20,000. According to the Eye Bank Association of America web site, over 700,000 people have had their sight restored since 1961.

A corneal transplant, also known as a corneal graft, or as a penetrating keratoplasty, involves the removal of the central portion (called a button) of the diseased cornea and replacing it with a matched donor button of cornea. Corneal grafts are also performed on patients with damaged or scarred corneas that prevent acceptable vision. Scarring may result from disease or trauma.

Over 90% of the corneal grafts are successful with some studies reporting 97% to 99% success rates at 5 and 10 years (Kirkness et al 1990; Troutman and Lawless 1987). Recipients have ranged in age from 9 days to 103 years.

Approximately 350 Oklahomans require a corneal transplant each year. The Oklahoma Lions Eye Bank is the only Eye Bank in Oklahoma working to provide corneas to physicians across the state.

The mother of a corneal transplant recipient shares her feelings about the work of the Oklahoma Lions Eye Bank:

“Benjamin’s blue eyes. It has been 17 years since his corneal transplants in infancy, and I have said more silent prayers of thanksgiving than I can count. Who is this young man with precious eyes? An honor student. A voracious reader. A summer volunteer at the library. A lover of maps and history. A budding young rock musician and driver of a vintage VW beetle. A blue belt student of Taekwondo. An Eagle Scout who built an outdoor science classroom. Ben’s blue eyes are beyond precious. They are the most profound gift one family could ever give another: Life after death.

- Benjamin’s Mom