A corneal implant made from pig skin restored vision in a small clinical trial.smart news

Millions of people around the world are blind or have reduced vision due to eye damage. cornea, a transparent outer layer that protects and focuses light on the eye.Even with a lightly damaged cornea you can fix it yourselfsome people may need a human corneal transplant to regain their vision.

However, these steps Corneal transplantcan be an expensive, invasive, and time-consuming surgery, and the patient must be on medication for a year or more to keep the body from rejecting the tissue. organ donationthe human cornea should be used promptly. two weeks Donor death risk – this can cause logistical problems. In many parts of the world, especially in poorer areas, there are not enough donated corneas.

Now, Swedish researchers say they have developed new solutions that address many of these and other corneal transplant problems. A bioengineered corneal implant made from pig skin.

In a small clinical trial, the implant led to improved vision in 20 patients suffering from progressive disease. keratoconus, a condition in which the cornea thins and bulges, causing blurry and distorted vision. Fourteen of her 20 participants were blind before surgery but regained some or all vision after receiving implants. They were also able to wear contact lenses again.Three of the blind patients achieved perfect her 20/20 vision after implantation.

All study participants continued to tolerate the implants two years after surgery and experienced no adverse effects such as inflammation or scarring.

Researchers should consider these and other results to be new paper was published in a magazine last week nature biotechnology.

“It is possible to develop a biomaterial that meets all the criteria for use as a human implant. You can,’ he said. Neil RiseAn ophthalmologist at Linköping University and one of the study’s authors, statement“This avoids the problem of a shortage of donated corneal tissue and access to other treatments for eye disease.”

To develop the corneal graft, the researchers used medical-grade collagen derived from pig skin to create a clear hydrogel. inserted. The procedure is also an improvement over traditional transplant surgery, in which the surgeon removes the patient’s original cornea and sutures a new cornea in place. Also, the 30-minute hydrogel procedure was much quicker than a typical corneal transplant, which takes several hours.

Patients in the clinical trial used immunosuppressive eye drops for just eight weeks after surgery compared to years of medication following conventional transplantation. Their bodies did not reject the bioengineered corneas. .

“The concept of being able to have a bioengineered cornea is revolutionary,” he says. Marian MacsayTo ophthalmologists at the University of Chicago who were not involved in the study, NBC News” Aria Bendix: “It could eliminate the risk of rejection and make the cornea accessible to patients around the world.”

It’s too early to tell if bioengineered corneas can help patients suffering from other ailments, but the technology could help patients with keratoconus, which affects 1 in 2,000 people worldwide. It shows promising early signs for people who are johns hopkins medicine.

Next, the researchers hope to try the corneas in a study involving more than 100 people, before continuing toward regulatory approval. NBC News report. They also hope to experiment with patients with other eye diseases.

Longer term, their goal is to make bioengineered corneas available in parts of the world with limited resources. , Eversite, which is not the case elsewhere. 2016 study Approximately 12.7 million people worldwide were found to need corneal transplants.

“We have put a lot of effort into making sure our inventions are widely available and affordable for everyone, not just the wealthy.” I’m here. Merdad RafatBiomedical Engineer, Linköping University CEO LinkoCare Life Science AB In a statement, one of the study’s authors. “That’s why this technology can be used anywhere in the world.”

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