| "The courage to live - and to see" Boston Globe |
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A horrific attack that happened two years ago left Carmen Tarleton blind and fighting for her life. After a Keratoprosthesis with Dr. Melki she has regained sight in her right eye. Click to read about her miraculous recovery and will to live. Featured in on the front page of the Boston Globe last Sunday.
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Cultured stem cells may be able to restore vision |
Researchers at University of New South Wales (UNSW) have used stem cells cultured on a simple contact lens to restore sight to sufferers of blinding corneal disease, the university said. The stem cells were cultured on a common therapeutic contact lens which was then placed onto the damaged cornea for 10 days, during which the cells were able to re-colonize the damaged eye surface. The trial was conducted on three patients; two with extensive corneal damage resulting from multiple surgeries to remove ocular melanomas, and one with the genetic eye condition aniridia. "The procedure is totally simple and cheap," said UNSW's Dr. Nick Di Girolamo. "Unlike other techniques, it requires no foreign human or animal products, only the patient's own serum, and is completely non-invasive. There's no suturing, there is no major operation: all that's involved is harvesting a minute amount-less than a millimeter-of tissue from the ocular surface. If you're going to be treating these sorts of diseases in third world countries all you need is the surgeon and a lab for cell culture. You don't need any fancy equipment." The study is published in Transplantation.
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| ROP Protein Target Identified |
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Researchers at the University of California, San Diego said a mouse study strongly suggests that the protein kinase JNK1 plays a key role in the development of retinopathy in premature infants, the university said in a press release. "Paradoxically, it isn't high oxygen levels that damage the retina," said Monica Guma, M.D., Ph.D., of the departments of pharmacology and pathology at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. "Rather, the premature retina is first exposed to a high-oxygen environment and becomes accustomed to it. When the infant is more mature and is returned to a 'normal' oxygen environment, the retina reacts to this hypoxia - or decrease in oxygen availability - as a stress." Using a mouse model of ROP, the UC San Diego researchers showed that mice lacking JNK1 exhibited lower levels of VEGF in the retina, so angiogenesis and normal retinal function were barely disrupted. "Using the JNK1 inhibitor, we were able to decrease VEGF production in half," said Dr. Guma. "Cells were still able to secrete some VEGF, but not enough to induce overgrowth of blood vessels in the retina."
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| Stem-cell therapy may be 'cure' for AMD |
British scientists are developing stem cell therapies to treat age-related macular degeneration, the Times of London reported. The paper added Pfizer (New York) will manufacture the membranes needed to pursue the research. To date, researchers at the London Project to Cure Blindness and Moorfields Eye Hospital (London) have shown embryonic stem cell therapy can prevent blindness in rat and pig eyes. The newspaper reported the procedure takes less than an hour. Clinical trials in humans are expected to begin in the next two years, the researchers said. (EyeWorld 2009) |
| Systane Study |
In the double-masked study, 30 LASIK patients were randomized to receive either Systane lubricant eye drops (Alcon, Fort Worth, Texas) or placebo. Patients were given Systane in either the left or the right eye and thimerosal-free saline in the other. Investigators found that patients pre-op had a significantly higher amount of corneal staining in the eye that received the placebo. However, this difference was found to be clinically insignificant.
At the two-week post-op mark investigators found that mean tear film break up time was 1.23 seconds longer than for placebo-treated eyes. None of the patients had any complications. "We compared the Systane essentially to balanced salt solution and we found that it was safe and effective," Dr. Durrie said. "The study showed us what we expected-that we can use artificial tear drops after LASIK surgery." (EyeWorld 2009)
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