2023-11-14 16:04:38
11:01 AM
New York surgeons performed the first complete eye transplant in a human, an achievement that was hailed as a breakthrough even though the patient has not regained vision in the eye.
In the six months since the surgery, performed during a partial face transplant, the grafted eye has shown important signs of health, including well-functioning blood vessels and a promising-looking retina, according to the surgical team at NYU Langone Health.
“The mere fact that we have transplanted an eye is a huge step forward, something that has been thought regarding for centuries but never done,” said Dr. Eduardo Rodríguez, who led the team.
Until now, doctors have only been able to transplant the cornea, the transparent front layer of the eye.
The recipient of the eye, Aaron James, is a 46-year-old military veteran from Arkansas who survived a work-related high-voltage electrical accident that destroyed the left side of his face, nose, mouth and left eye.
The transplant surgery lasted 21 hours. Initially, doctors only planned to include the eyeball as part of the face transplant for cosmetic reasons, Rodriguez said during a Zoom interview.
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“If some form of vision restoration occurred, it would be wonderful, but… the goal was for us to do the technical operation” and for the eyeball to survive, Rodríguez added.
Anything that happens in the future will be monitored, he said. Currently, the transplanted eye does not communicate with the brain through the optic nerve.
To encourage healing of the connection between the donor and recipient’s optic nerves, surgeons harvested adult stem cells from the donor’s bone marrow and injected them into the optic nerve during the transplant, hoping they would replace damaged cells and protect the nerve.
Transplanting a viable eyeball opens up many new possibilities, Rodriguez said, even if sight is not recovered in this case. Other research teams are developing ways to connect nerve networks in the brain with blind eyes by inserting electrodes, for example, to enable vision, he said.
“If we can work with other scientists who are working on other methods to restore vision or restore images in the visual cortex, I think we are one step closer,” Rodríguez said.
James, who had retained vision in his right eye, knew he might not regain vision in the transplanted eye.
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The doctors “never expected it to work at all and told me that from the beginning,” he said.
“I told them, ‘Even if I can’t see… maybe at least all of you can learn something to help the next person.’ “That’s how you get started,” she said. “Hopefully this opens a new path.” James might still regain sight in the transplanted eye, Rodriguez said.
“I don’t think anyone can claim to see it. But in the same way, they cannot affirm that he will not see,” Rodríguez said. “At this point, I think we are quite happy with the result we were able to achieve with a very technically demanding operation.”
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