Early findings of the world’s first trail that uses embryonic stem cells to treat age-related eye diseases recommend that the technique is safe to use. Experts hope that by injecting these embryonic cells into an ill eye, they will be capable to refurbish vision for people suffering presently with incurable conditions such as Stargardt’s disease.
Stargart’s is one of the major causes of blindness in younger generation. The treatment involves taking healthy immature cells from human embryo, which is then manipulated to grow into the cells which line the retina. US firm Advanced Cell Technology together with the Jules Stein Eye Institute from the University of California, Los Angeles, carried out their first trail of this treatment in humans.
The trail involved two patients, one in her seventies with dry age-related macular degeneration, which is the leading cause of blindness in the developed world and another in her fifties with Stargardt’s disease. Both that patients had very poor vision and were registered blind.
Each patient was administered a jab containing fifty thousand of the retinal pigment epithelium cells into one of their diseased eyes. The structural proof after surgery corroborated that the cells had attached to membrane of the eye as expected. In addition to that these cells sustained to survive all through the next sixteen weeks of the trail.
Besides, the method seemed to be safe and did not cause any signs of rejection or abnormal cell growth. It is still too early to make any firm conclusion and many more years of study will be required to confirm that treatment is safe as well as effective. The study was published in The Lancet.
Trials with similar technique have now started at London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital. The eventual therapeutic goal will be to treat patients earlier in the disease processes, potentially increasing the likelihood of photoreceptor and central visual rescue, stated study experts. The goal of these first human studies is to confirm that the treatment is safe to use.
They do not have a complete answer yet. But it is a valuable next step, concluded a stem cell expert Chris Mason from UK.