At the end of life, many people choose to help other people by donating their eye or just their cornea. Their eye donation can help:

• provide a sight-restoring transplant
• train surgeons and eye bankers to maintain and develop the eye donation service
• help researchers to advance healthcare.

The cornea and the sclera are the parts of the eyes that are used for transplantation. The cornea is the clear window at the front of the eye, and the sclera is the white of the eye that surrounds the cornea.

A corneal transplant involves replacing all or part of an impaired cornea with a healthy donor cornea. This helps to restore their sight.

Scleral tissue can help people with glaucoma who get a medical valve placed into their eye or people needing reconstruction of their eye.

Donated corneas that are not suitable for transplant may be used for medical research and training and service development, if consented.

The good news is almost everyone can donate their eyes or corneas after their death. Eye donors can have any eye colour, blood type or level of eyesight and be from any gender or community group.

There are a few conditions that prevent eye donation for transplant, but most causes of death do not impact the ability to donate. A Donor Coordinator will guide donors and/or their families through the donor’s specific options during the donation conversation.

Corneal transplants can help restore vision in people who have a damaged cornea. Damage can happen through infection, injury or diseases like keratoconus.

This sight-saving procedure is only possible if there is a donated cornea to transplant.

In Australia, around 2500 corneal transplants are performed each year. Over 530 of these are from donated corneas supplied by the Lions Eye Donation Service.

Except for blood transfusion, corneal transplants are the oldest and most common form of human transplantation.

People donating toward research can help researchers understand the eye and develop new treatments and preventions.

The Liona Eye Donation Service (LEDS) is the Custodian of the CERA Biobank. They are responsible for placing donations, consented for research, with approved researchers at the Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) and other universities and medical research institutions. LEDS only provides donations to projects that are approved with an Australia Human Research Ethics Committee.

Tissue donated to LEDS for research has helped research groups working on glaucoma, inherited retinal disease and diabetic eye disease – and supported the development of new corneal surgical devices and future therapies.

For further information, including Frequently Asked Questions about donating to research, please visit our CERA Biobank page.

Choosing to donate your eye tissue after you pass away is a personal decision. If you would like to become an eye donor, there are a few steps you need to take to record your wishes.

Eye donors can also donate toward ‘Training.’ In this instance, eye donations can help:

• train corneal registrars
• train surgeons to use new techniques and technologies
• train eye bankers to handle and prepare tissue for transplant, training and research
• develop and maintain the eye donation service.

This has immeasurable long-term benefit to the wider health system – ensuring more people can access transplant surgeries and more research can be undertaken to prevent and treat more conditions.

At the point of eye donation, donors may ‘tick’ on the LEDS consent form to indicate if they would like to donate toward training.