A team of researchers from the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California in Los Angeles (USA) has managed to restore vision to patients with macular diseases ; specifically macular dry age-related degeneration and Stargardt's macular degeneration. The results have been published in the journal The Lancet .
The technique used, based on the transplantation of stem cells derived from the retinal pigment epithelium , has been tested in 18 patients with a six-month follow-up after the operation. The results in all cases have been positive . None of the implants produced rejection and the patients recovered their vision normally.
Since the eye is able to tolerate foreign cells without eliciting an immune response, it has been possible to test the implantation of stem cells, which are capable of becoming any type of cell in the body. To compare the improvement in the patients' vision, they decided to inject stem cells into just one of the two eyes, observing how both eyes had evolved. Eyes that had not received stem cells did not show any type of visual improvement. Three years after transplantation, half of the patients partially or fully recovered their vision .
“Stem cells are an alternative to progressive vision loss in people with degenerative diseases. The research marks an exciting step toward its use in the treatment of diseases that require repair or replacement of muscle tissue, ”says study co-author Steven Schwartz.
