Italian doctors have performed the world's first-ever transplant of the central part of the retina, the macula, restoring sight to a patient who had been blind for five years. announced a hospital in Turin (north).
This 67-year-old woman, named Elena, " had completely lost his sight following a serious road accident, which caused irreversible damage to the optic nerve in his left eye, causing him to lose his sight due to the inability to transmit light from the eye to the brain, while leaving the ocular structures intact" , according to a statement from Molinette Hospital sent to AFP on Monday.
However, his right eye, already affected by maculopathy, " had suffered traumas that had irreparably compromised the retina and the transparency of the cornea" explains the statement.
Reconstruction of a sighted eye using healthy tissue from the other eye
“ The total destruction of the part containing the stem cells made a conventional corneal transplant completely impossible.", condemning this woman to blindness, according to the hospital.
But this obstacle, " considered until now to be insurmountable "According to the Turin hospital, it was overcome by Professor Michele Reibaldi and his medical team.
“ By utilizing healthy but non-functional tissue from the left eye, doctors removed and transferred to the right eye a complete anatomical block including the cornea, sclera, conjunctiva and, for the first time in the world, the central part of the retina, the macula.", the hospital explains.
This " biological transfer » made it possible to reconstruct a sighting eye from the two affected eyes.
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A world first that needs to be confirmed by a scientific publication and, above all, by patient follow-up.
“ We are now waiting to see how well the transplanted retina will function, but the initial results are encouraging.", commented Professor Reibaldi in the press release, specifying that the intervention, " very complex", lasted almost six hours.
French professor Michel Paques, head of the ophthalmology department at the Quinze-Vingts National Hospital in Paris and a specialist in retinal pathologies, confirmed to AFP that this was a world first.
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In the absence of published and peer-reviewed data, " It is not possible to objectively evaluate the technique, its reproducibility, or the announced results."However, the Parisian hospital clarified.
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