As one of the head cause of imaginativeness departure , age - link macular degeneration(AMD ) fall out due to the destruction of the part of the eye responsible for sharp , primal vision . In apioneering surgical procedure , doctors in the U.K. have used human embryologic stem cell in an attack to cure a patient of the most serious conformation of AMD .
The surgery , which takes between one and two hour , is part of a trial looking into the safety of transplanting healthy eye cells deduct from embryonal stem cells into patients who have lost vision due to AMD . The surgeon use a particularly engineered eyepatch of retinal pigment epithelial cells ( RPE ) and embed it in a region of the middle called the yellow spot , the sphere responsible for for central , high-pitched - resolution vision , where the patient role ’s original cells have been damaged .
There are two types of AMD , a “ juiceless ” form and a “ wet ” one . ironic AMD is due to a dislocation or cutting of the stratum of RPE cells in the macula and is characterized by the build - up of yellow deposit calleddrusen . This is the most common and least serious pattern of AMD , and it ’s estimated that aroundone in fourpeople over the years of 60 will develop it . It can , however , lead to the developing of wet AMD , which is when the blood vessels behind the macula become abnormal and leak fluid or blood . This form of AMD is very serious , and can cause vision going in a issue of solar day .
The OR carried out is part of a visitation run by the London Project to Cure Blindness , which over the next 18 months design to carry out a further nine mathematical operation to enquire the prophylactic and efficacy of the procedure . “ There is real potential that people with wet eld - related macular degeneration will benefit in the time to come from transplantation of these cells,”explainedretinal surgeon Lyndon Da Cruz from Moorfields Eye Hospital , where the operation was carried out .
“ This is truly a regenerative projection , ” Da Cruz toldBBC News . “ In the past it ’s been impossible to substitute lose neural cells . If we can deport the very layer of cell that is overlook and give them their function back this would be of enormous benefit to mass with the slew - threatening condition . ”
