First transplant of a complete eye in the United States, without restoring vision – rts.ch

2023-11-10 08:54:24

This is a world first bringing hope for people who have lost the use of one eye: an American surgical team announced Thursday that it had carried out the first transplant of a complete eye on a patient, who however did not recover his sight.

Just over five months after surgery, the patient’s eye continues to show signs of very good health, including blood flow to the retina.

“We have taken a significant step forward and paved the way for the next chapter to restore vision,” Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, who led the operation, said in a statement.

More than 140 people participated in the operation led by Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez on Aaron James. [Joe Carrotta – NYU Langone Health]The latter lasted around 21 hours non-stop and was carried out at the end of May by a team from New York University Hospital NYU Langone Health composed of more than 140 people – in surgery, infirmary and with other health specialists. In addition to the left eye and its socket, the team also transplanted the nose, lips and other facial tissue taken from a donor.

The recipient patient, Aaron James, suffered a workplace accident in 2021, when his face accidentally touched a high-voltage power line in Arkansas; he was completely disfigured. “He also lost his dominant arm, the left, at the level of the humerus. Most people who suffer the injuries he suffered do not survive such an event”, specifies the doctor in a video filmed by the hospital.

As Aaron James had to take immunosuppressants to avoid rejection of the grafts performed on his face, he was an ideal candidate to attempt an eye transplant at the same time.

“Huge progress”

This is a “remarkable achievement”, which marks an important step towards “the ultimate goal of restoring vision”, commented Daniel Pelaez, associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Miami.

“It’s a huge step forward,” added surgeon Kia Washington, who has been working on this problem for ten years at the University of Colorado. “So many people still doubted” that such a transplant “was possible in humans.”

According to her, it is probably impossible at this stage that Aaron James will regain his sight thanks to this transplant. But the patient was aware that this operation would probably only have an aesthetic benefit for him, according to NYU Langone: “I have no words to thank the donor and his family, who gave me a second chance in life. life during a difficult time for them,” he said in a statement. “Our hope is that my story can serve as an inspiration to people who have suffered serious facial and eye injuries.”

Nerve connection

The main difficulty of an eye transplant is to restore the transmission of information to the brain via the optic nerve. This is in fact cut in both the patient and the donor to carry out the graft.

>> An animation showing the careful steps needed on the donor and recipient:

Transplantation of part of the face and left eye / Video news / 5 min. / yesterday at 7:23 p.m.

In the past, whole eye transplants had already been performed on small animals, whose vision was at least partially restored in some cases, Kia Washington explained.

But succeeding in achieving this in humans will require combining “many different methods”, according to her. Among those cited by the specialist as future avenues: gene therapy, the use of stem cells or even the preparation of the recipient’s brain via electrical stimulation.

Will it one day be possible to give sight to a person blind from birth through a transplant? This is still a distant horizon, replies the surgeon. But “I think yes, it will happen in the coming decades.”

Stéphanie Jaquet and the ats

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