whic helped pts to see through their severely damaged eye
"To provide the patient with useful vision, an artificial cornea or “keratoprosthesis” is used. The artificial cornea is made of hard plastic. For the plastic prosthesis to retain in the eye, tissues from the patient’s own body are used. The tooth is ideal because it has a hard part to which the cylinder can be fixed and also it resides in the mouth where it co-exists with soft tissues, as in the eye."
http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/medint/ovs/research%20web/ookp-e.pdf