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Surgeons in New York announce world's first eye transplant
The recipient can't see out of it, but it remains healthy months after transplant.
https://www.reuters.com/business/he...ounce-worlds-first-eye-transplant-2023-11-09/
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Surgeons in New York have performed the first-ever whole-eye transplant in a human, they announced on Thursday, an accomplishment being hailed as a breakthrough even though the patient has not regained sight in the eye.
In the six months since the surgery, performed during a partial face transplant, the grafted eye has shown important signs of health, including well-functioning blood vessels and a promising-looking retina, according to the surgical team at NYU Langone Health.
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Presently, the transplanted eye is not communicating with the brain through the optic nerve.
To encourage healing of the connection between the donor and recipient optic nerves, surgeons harvested adult stem cells from the donor’s bone marrow and injected them into the optic nerve during the transplant, hoping they would replace damaged cells and protect the nerve.
Transplantation of a viable eye globe opens many new possibilities, Rodriguez said, even if sight is not restored in this case.
Other research teams are developing ways to connect nerve networks in the brain to sightless eyes through insertion of electrodes, for example, to allow vision, he said.
