At least three corneal transplant operations scheduled for Hawai'i in recent weeks had to be postponed because available donors couldn't be found here or on the Mainland, doctors and health officials said this week. A relatively recent technique that makes corneal transplants easier and more popular may be contributing to the shortage, officials said.

"There's always been a periodic problem here obtaining transplants, but this is the first time that I've ever had to cancel three operations in a row," said Dr. John Olkowski, a corneal and refractive surgeon in Honolulu.

In the past, doctors could usually count on obtaining corneas for transplant within a matter of days, either from Hawai'i donors or a decades-old nationwide network that transports recovered eye tissue quickly from one place to another, said Shawn Wooford, executive director of the Hawai'i Lions Eye Bank.

Recently it's been harder to find available corneas on the Mainland.

"Even the large eye banks on the Mainland are finding they don't have enough for their own needs. For two weeks, we were calling everywhere and couldn't find anything available to fill the scheduled operations in Hawai'i," Wooford said.

Corneal operations treat a variety of vision problems, especially in elderly patients. The operations have increased dramatically in the last few years in part because of a new technique that uses only part of the eye tissue rather than transplanting the entire cornea. The technique gives patients a much shorter recovery time and has led to up to 40,000 corneal transplants being done each year, Olkowski said.

In Hawai'i, about half of the 130 or so transplants done each year use corneas recovered from the bodies of local donors, Wooford said. The rest of the corneas come from eye banks around the nation. Another 40 to 50 Hawai'i corneas — which remain viable for seven to 14 days after being recovered — are sent to Mainland eye banks when no patients are waiting locally, Wooford said.

While doctors try to schedule a transplant well in advance, last-minute delays can cause serious psychological and financial problems for recipients, Olkowski said.

"You get all hyped up for the moment of the big procedure, then there's a huge psychological letdown when you find out it can't be done as scheduled," he said. "The eye-banking system was developed to avoid those kinds of problems but it seems like we've taken a little step backward from that."

Seventy-two-year-old James Fujitani knows all the psychological ups-and-downs of waiting for a transplant operation.

Last year at this time his vision was getting worse — like someone kept putting a piece of white tape in front of his eyes, he said — but he had to wait for months to schedule a corneal transplant.

"There's all sorts of anxiety," Fujitani said. "You're going through this torture of not being able to see, and things keep coming up that put off the date when you can get it fixed."

Fujitani, whose corneal transplant operation has allowed him to begin playing golf again, said he'll be forever grateful to his unknown donor.

"I'm very happy and thankful for having my sight back again. A lot of people or families are scared to donate tissue, but they probably don't realize how much they could be helping somebody else," he said.

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.