PITTSBURGH — It can happen in a split second — baseball, hockey, lacrosse or racquet sports like tennis and squash — can be the source of traumatic eye injury. Now, a new FDA-approved implant is helping surgeons restore normal vision to people who’ve had damage to their iris.
Surgeons at the UPMC Vision Institute spent 18 months and two surgeries repairing Evan Facher’s torn retina and lens before addressing his badly damaged iris, the colored part of the eye that regulates light. Without a functional iris, even low levels of light left him severely sensitive.
Facher suffered the injury during a backyard sports accident two summers ago. Emergency room doctors immediately determined he needed specialized treatment after discovering a torn retina, a shattered lens and a partially missing iris in his left eye.
“Within a millisecond, the world changed for me,” Facher said. “All of a sudden, I’m laying on the ground. Blood was coming down the left side of my face.”
Without a functioning iris to regulate light entering the eye, Facher experienced extreme visual discomfort.
Dr. Ian Conner, a surgeon at the UPMC Vision Institute, noted the severity of the condition for patients missing an iris.
“Even the smallest amount of light is overwhelming for these patients,” Conner said. Facher recalled having to adjust his daily routine to cope with the light sensitivity.
“Even in the supermarket with bright fluorescent lights, I would be wearing my dark sunglasses all over the place,” Facher said.
To repair the damage, surgeons performed a delicate procedure using the artificial iris implant while simultaneously replacing Facher’s shattered lens. Conner explained how the complex surgery is executed.
“We pre-thread the implant with GORE-TEK sutures and then pass the implant through the incision into the eye where it unfolds,” Conner said. “And then I pull the sutures out through the wall of the eye, tie them on the outside and rotate the suture in.”
About one week after the December 2025 surgery, Facher began noticing significant improvements as his eye healed. His vision eventually returned to about 90% of normal, reaching 20-25 clarity with prescription glasses. Dr. Conner described the surgical result as life-changing.
The successful outcome carried extra significance for Facher, who helped develop the UPMC Vision Institute and recruit its medical talent in his leadership role at the University of Pittsburgh.
“If we didn’t have those people around here, then we would have never had the ability to have this surgery that I had because you wouldn’t have had people skilled enough to do it,” Facher said.
In the eight months since Facher’s surgery, Dr. Conner has performed artificial iris implants on two other patients at the facility. The UPMC Vision Institute is one of a handful of specialty hospitals in the U.S. performing the implant procedure.
Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.
Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW