I have a friend who just yesterday, underwent a stem cell harvest for her sick brother. I was interested to read this morning that an older woman has completed a brand new cell replacement treatment for restoration of her sight caused by corneal blindness.
The 50 year old woman from Edinburgh was a patient born with aniridia, which causes incomplete formation of her iris, a very rare condition that results in loss of vision normally in both eyes. The patient had only a large dilated pupil and as such her sight was affected by daylight and darkness, colours, distance and speed plus space and other environmental factors. She had to wear dark glasses to protect her eyes for the long term.
Pre-op she only accumulated roughly 10% of the vision of a normal sighted person and was extremely short sighted in general. The stem cell trial has been developed by experts in Scotland. It involves growing stem cells from deceased donors and transplanting them on to the patient's cornea, the transparent front part of the eye.
The operation involves transferring stem cells grown from a deceased donors directly onto the subjects cornea. The damaged parts of the cornea are removed prior to the transplant.
It has been reported by doctors that corneal blindness could be reversed if successful. Whether the procedure has been successful will not be determined for another nine months. But the implications for a successful trial are obvious.