New Procedure Offers Hope to Patients With Damaged Corneas

After two years of testing, a new procedure is on the horizon which could restore the sight of millions of people suffering loss of vision due to damaged corneas. A recent study from Canadian and Swedish doctors, using synthetic corneas produced in a lab, showed positive results in line with the standard treatment using corneas from cadavers.

The synthetic corneas are created using collagen, then implanted in the recipient as a platform for the body’s natural cells to attach to. According to the study, nine of the ten patients receiving the corneas demonstrated tissue regeneration, as nerves and cells grew in conjunction with the cornea and became part of the implant. The test results were described by the Cornea Research Foundation’s Dr. Francis W. Price Jr. as a “huge breakthrough.”

The current standard treatment of using cadaver corneas presents several problems for doctors, including the possibility of rejection by the recipient’s body. With the synthetic corneas there has been no need for anti-rejection drugs in any of the patients tested. If the procedure makes it to market after the completion of further studies, the synthetic corneas would more than make up for the short supply of cadaver tissue.

According to Marianne O’Connor Price, executive director of the Cornea Research Foundation, more than six million people around the world suffer some sort of corneal damage. In th U.S., roughly 42,000 corneal transplants are performed annually. The same cannot be said for the rest of the world, where cadaver corneas are hard to come by.