New retinal implant restores vision in patients with irreversible blindness

A wireless retinal implant showed potential to restore central vision in patients with advanced agerelated macular degeneration AMD according to clinical trial results published on Monday October 20Advanced atrophic AMD also known as geographic atrophy GA is the leading cause of irreversible blindness in older adults affecting more than 5 million people worldwideThe study led by researchers from the University College London University of Pittsburgh and Stanford Medicine revealed that 27 out of 32 participants had regained the ability to read a year after receiving the deviceThe device called PRIMA is the first eye prosthesis to restore functional sight to patients with incurable vision loss giving them the ability to perceive shapes and patterns also known as form visionldquoItrsquos the first time that any attempt at vision restoration has achieved such results in a large number of patientsrdquo said JoseacuteAlain Sahel chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburghrsquos School of Medicine USldquoMore than 80 per cent of the patients were able to read letters and words and some of them are reading pages in a bookrdquo Sahel saidThe study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that over 81 per cent patients achieved clinically meaningful improvements in visual acuity while 84 per cent reported using prosthetic vision at home for reading numbers or wordsOn average participants improved by 25 letters about five lines on a standard eye chart when using the device More than 80 per cent of participants gained 10 or more lettersAs AMD progresses the centre of vision becomes increasingly blurry due to the irreversible damage to the lightsensing cells in the central part of the retina In a healthy retina those cells capture ambient light from the environment and transform it into pulses of electricity which are then sent to nerve cells lining the back of the eye and eventually to the brain through the optic nerveThe device called PRIMA replaces these lost photoreceptors with a 2times2 mm wireless implant that converts light into electrical signals to stimulate remaining retinal cellsA camera mounted on specialised glasses captures images and projects them onto the implant using invisible nearinfrared light The implant then converts the light into electrical pulses restoring the flow of visual information to the brain Patients can adjust zoom and contrast settings to enhance functional visionAfter one year of using the system all procedurerelated adverse events had subsided and the majority of participants showed significant improvement in their ability to read letters on the eye chart One participant improved by as many as 59 letters or 12 linesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever