Synthetic Corneas Could Bring Sight To Millions

Corneas made from collagen have fewer side effects than corneal transplants.

ByABC News
August 26, 2010, 3:42 PM

August 26, 2010 — -- For the 10 million people suffering from corneal blindness, the only way to gain sight has been through a hard to get corneal transplant, but that might change thanks to a medical breakthrough.

Scientists have created a new weapon, an artificial cornea. The bioartificial cornea is made by sewing a sliver of collagen into the eye, almost like a contact lens.

"I think this should give great hope to people with blindness," said Claes H. Dohlman, founder of the Cornea Service at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

In a new report, released in the Science Translational Medicine journal, doctors say that the artificial cornea coaxes the eye's own natural cornea cells and nerves to grow back and restore sight. The cornea worked in a first-stage study of 10 patients in Sweden. After two years, six of the patients had significantly improved vision with glasses and two were no worse.

"It does not appear that there are downsides because none of our patients showed any signs of reaction," said Dr. May Griffith from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.

Experts say the artificial cornea has the potential to be even more successful than donor corneas because there are fewer side effects.

The artificial cornea is a step toward helping the millions worldwide who are unable to find donors. In the U.S., where there are drives to encourage people to donate their corneas when they die, 42,000 people receive transplanted corneas each year. Outside of the United States, it's much harder for people to find donors and even when someone does receive a transplant, the donation requires a lifetime of drugs to fend off rejections.

The artificial cornea is just one of several breakthroughs in recent years for the blind.

Doctors have also grown corneas using a patient's own stem cells. In Italy, researchers studied a technique to repair damaged corneas by using patients' unscathed stem cells to grow new tissue that was grafted into the patient's own eye.

It was successful in 78 percent of patients, according to researchers, who followed the patients for 10 years after the procedure.