In a world first that gives hope to people who have lost an eye, American surgeons announced Thursday that they had performed the first complete eye transplant on a patient who did not regain his sight.
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Just over five months after surgery, the patient’s eye continues to show signs of very good health, including retinal blood flow.
“We have taken a tremendous step forward and paved the way for the next chapter in vision restoration,” said Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, who led the operation, said in a statement.
The latter lasted about 21 hours and was carried out in late May by a team from New York University Hospital NYU Langone Health.
AFP
In addition to the left eye and its orbit, surgeons also transplanted a donor’s nose, lips and other facial tissue.
Recipient patient Aaron James was the victim of an industrial accident in 2021 when his face accidentally touched a power line.
Aaron James before the accident | Screenshot Portal
Because he still had to take immunosuppressants to avoid rejection of the transplants performed on his face, he was an ideal candidate to attempt an eye transplant.
“Huge progress”
This is a “remarkable achievement” that represents an important step toward “the ultimate goal of restoring vision,” Daniel Pelaez, associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Miami, commented to AFP.
Screenshot | Portal
“It’s a big step forward,” added surgeon Kia Washington, who has been working on this problem at the University of Colorado for 10 years. “So many people still doubted” that such a transplant “was possible in humans.”
AFP
In their opinion, at this point it is probably impossible for Aaron James to regain his sight thanks to this transplant.
However, according to NYU Langone, the patient was aware that this surgery would likely only have an aesthetic benefit for him.
Screenshot | Portal
“I have no words to thank the donor and his family for giving me a second chance at life during a difficult time for them,” he said in a statement. “We hope my story can serve as an inspiration to people who have suffered serious facial and eye injuries.”
Aaron James, who can still see in his right eye, has now been able to return to Arkansas with his wife and daughter and returns to New York every month for follow-up appointments.
Nerve connection
The main difficulty of an eye transplant is to restore the transmission of information through the optic nerve to the brain. This is incised on both the patient and the donor to carry out the transplant.
Screenshot | Portal
In the past, entire eye transplants have been performed on small animals, and in some cases their vision has been at least partially restored, explained surgeon Kia Washington.
But in order to achieve this in humans, in her opinion, “many different methods have to be combined.” The future prospects mentioned by the expert include gene therapy, the use of stem cells and the preparation of the recipient’s brain using electrical stimulation.
Will it one day be possible to restore sight to a congenitally blind person through a transplant? That’s still a thing of the future, answers the surgeon. But “I think that will happen in the coming decades.”