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The media office of Linkoping University announced that doctors from Europe, India and Iran performed for the first time an artificial cornea transplant on twenty patients, which restored in some the sense of sight and improved the vision of others.
The office indicates that 14 patients who underwent this operation were completely blind, and the other six had severe visual impairment.
According to data from the World Health Organization, corneal problems rank fourth in the list of causes of vision loss. But in about half of cases, vision can be restored with a corneal transplant. However, it is not possible to perform this operation for everyone due to the lack of suitable donors.
It is reported that researchers have been working for years to find a solution to this problem in experiments aimed to obtain artificially implanted corneas. The tissue of these corneas consists of protein-collagen, which can be obtained from stem cells or extracted from the human or animal body.
To protect the protein from damage, the scientists created an optical polymer coating, In addition, the scientists modified the structure of the collagen strands so that this protein transmits light in the same way as the human cornea, while increasing its durability.
According to the researchers, the transplantation of artificial corneas improved vision in all patients, including 14 who were completely blind. The success of this process allows such corneas to be produced in large quantities and stored for a long time, which facilitate doctors to perform corneal restoration operations at any time, and gives hope for the treatment of blindness caused by corneal degeneration.
Source: Tass Agency - https://ar.rt.com/tlfv Published: 12.08.2022
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