A study conducted by Canadian and Swedish researchers appearing in the latest edition of the ‘Science Translational Medicine journal’ proffers hope to scores of individuals losing their eyesight yearly due to global deficit of corneas being donated.
May Griffith from the Ottawa Hospital Research Inst. who also helmed the small-scaled human trial stated that their work was a pioneering one which has ably shown that synthetically manufactured corneas are capable of integrating with the human eyes and stimulating regeneration.
Griffith is optimistic that with additional studies, this strategy could aid in restoring vision among scores of individuals awaiting a human corneal donation for transplant.
The cornea is a small piece of translucent, sheath-similar tissue casing the eye surface. It is made of parallel collagen filaments that refract light for focusing varied images on to the retinal surface.
Though the delicate sheath could face damage by some form of traumatic incident or infections, replaced human cornea could reinstate eye sight, though it is largely dependent on a constant flow of donors.
A research group helmed by Per Fagerholm & May Griffith performed the trial wherein disease-ridden tissue were removed from the corneal area of ten candidates and replaced with biosynthetic implant created for mimicking a normal cornea of humans.
The researchers employed re-combinant human collagen for the procedure which is an artificially made lab substance to imitate human tissue which was furnished by a San Francisco-based biotechnology company FibroGen Inc.
Monitoring of the patients was done for 2 years post-surgery. The study scientists uncovered that with passage of time, the nerve and cell forms in 9 out of ten study entrants showed complete re-growth and noted to pack themselves inside the implanted cornea that resulted in a form of corneal regeneration which had analogous appearance and functioning as regular healthy eye tissues.
Moreover, the study investigators were also pleasantly surprised to note that the biosynthetic corneas developed sensitivity to touch and the eyes that underwent treatment started creating regular tear production. Vision improvement was noted in 6 out of ten patients.
Fitting of eye contacts was then done in these patients – deemed a prevalent practice post corneal transplantation. Eye sight in the patients was akin to those patients who underwent normal transplantation of human cornea.
Fagerholm, Prof. of Ophthamology & ocular surgeon from Linkoping Univ., Sweden pointed out that the study findings are quite heartening and holds immense potential.
Vision loss arising because of a traumatized or diseased cornea afflicts over ten million individuals globally; however dearth of access to tissues by donors restricts the numbers of transplant procedures taking place, especially in third-world countries.
In the U.S., approximately 42000 cornea grafting procedures are conducted yearly employing tissues derived from post-obit donors; however there are at times issues with them getting rejected and specialists’ state that the failure rates are noteworthy.
Fagerholm stated that the study entrants faced no rejection issues and didn’t require long standing immunosuppressive medications for assisting the body in accepting the cornea.
