In a phase 1 clinical trial, scientists have demonstrated that corneal transplants, grown from a patient’s own stem cells, can successfully restore some vision after an eye injury.
The cornea is the transparent front section of the eye, and if it’s damaged by injury or disease it can affect a person’s vision. A corneal transplantation using a donated cornea is a common procedure to correct for this damage, but in cases of chemical burns to the eye the surrounding tissue can be too damaged for a transplant.
A new clinical trial tested an experimental new treatment that could help these patients. It’s called cultivated autologous limbal epithelial cell (CALEC) transplantation, and it involves taking stem cells from a patient’s other eye, then growing them into a sheet in the lab. A few weeks later, this new CALEC graft is ready to be transplanted into the damaged eye, where it can not only help improve a patient’s vision but also encourage new cells to grow, potentially making them suitable for a regular corneal transplantation later.
Of the five patients enrolled in the phase 1 study, two saw striking improvements to their eyesight without needing any further intervention. They both went up to 20/30 vision – one was up from 20/40 vision and the other could previously only see broad hand motion. Two other participants became eligible for corneal transplantations. The fifth was, unfortunately, unable to receive a CALEC transplant because their stem cells couldn’t expand enough in the lab.
These results are promising for other patients who may now have new options for restoring vision lost to injury. The next phase of the trial, already underway, involves 15 patients who have received CALEC transplants and are currently being tracked over 18 months.
“Our early results suggest that CALEC might offer hope to patients who had been left with untreatable vision loss and pain associated with major cornea injuries,” said Ula Jurkunas, MD, lead author and principal investigator of the study. “Cornea specialists have been hindered by a lack of treatment options with a high safety profile to help our patients with chemical burns and injuries that render them unable to get an artificial cornea transplant. We are hopeful with further study, CALEC can one day fill this crucially needed treatment gap.”
The research was published in the journal Science Advances.
Source: Mass Eye and Ear