Surgeons in London have implanted
derivatives of embryonic stem cells into the retina of a patient with macular
degeneration in an attempt to restore her sight and reverse the damage of a
disease that affects an estimated 10% of people over the age of 65.
Doctors at Moorfields Eye
Hospital in London carried out the surgery last month on a 60-year-old woman
who suffers from wet macular degeneration. It’s an age-related condition in
which deformed blood vessels leak fluid or blood onto the eye, robbing the
patient of sight in the center of their field of vision.
Surgeons implanted healthy
retinal pigment epithelium cells grown from the stem cells—which have the
potential to become any cell in the body—of donated human embryos. It will take
at least three months to determine whether the patient has regained her sight
and how long any improvement will last. Nine more patients are scheduled to
have the surgery, in a trial funded by the drug company Pfizer.
Doctors are hopeful that the
treatment could prove a breakthrough for sufferers of age-related macular
degeneration, the chief cause of blindness in people over 60.
It could also be adapted to treat
dry macular degeneration, in which the eye’s light-sensitive cells slowly break
down. Wet macular degeneration is less common—just 10% of diagnosed cases—but
brings on blindness much more swiftly. It’s believed responsible for 90% of
legal blindness in the US. Currently, there’s no cure for either form.
The Moorfields trial was the
first of its kind in the UK and one of several experiments around the world on
the use of stem cells to cure blindness.
Earlier this year, scientists in
Korea injected stem-cell-derived cells into the eyes of four patients with
macular degeneration, three of whom saw improvement in their vision. Trials in
the US and UK have used stem cells to halt loss of vision caused by a condition
known as Stargardt’s disease, with success.
Source : http://goo.gl/bcxpXE
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