Sangita Patel, MD, PhD is a cornea and external diseases specialist at the Ross Eye Institute. She treats patients with a wide range of eye problems with a focus on diseases of the cornea and external surface of the eye, including corneal infections, corneal swelling, pterygium and corneal dystrophies such as Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy. She performs a variety of surgical procedures, including corneal transplantation, cataract surgery, conjunctival surgery and transplantation of the artificial cornea (keratoprosthesis) when standard corneal transplantation has failed.

Patel is a clinician-scientist. She performs clinical and laboratory research on corneal diseases. Her goal is to discover treatments and preventive strategies for diseases causing corneal swelling (such as Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy and bullous keratopathy) that currently can only be treated by corneal transplantation.

Patel’s current research focuses on understanding why Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy is more common in women than men. She is using techniques in clinical epidemiology (studying the distribution of Fuchs dystrophy in the population) and laboratory studies on corneal tissue to answer this question. She enrolls participants for her research from her clinic at the Ross Eye Institute.

Patel’s research is funded by the National Institutes of Health (K08EY029007 from the National Eye Institute and the Office of Research on Women’s Health).

Publications:

https://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.gate.lib.buffalo.edu/pubmed/?term=patel+sangita+p