Patients with impaired vision because of a damaged cornea could soon regain their sight without need of a human donor transplant. Instead, such patients could be aided by an artificial but biosynthetic implant. One such implant has now been tested in patients over two years, and the results are as good as, or even better than, those achieved with donor corneas.
The transparent tissue that covers the surface of the eyes, the cornea, can be damaged by injury, infection, or inflammation, causing the eye to lose much of its ability to refract light and focus images on the retina. Such damage has caused loss of vision in millions of people around the world. The best treatment for cornea damage remains a transplant, but donor corneas are in chronically short supply.
Plastic replacements have been available for decades, but their implantation is still plagued by side effects such as infection and glaucoma. "They remain a last resort option for patients where all other options have failed, including donor transplants," says Joachim Storsberg at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research in Potsdam, Germany. Storsberg is developing plastic implants but was not involved with the current work.
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