New Type of Corneal Implant Fuses into the Eye
A new type of artificial cornea has been successfully implanted into an elderly patient, who demonstrated recovered sight the day after his surgery.
When the cornea is damaged by disease or injury, blindness can result, necessitating a cornea transplant. Artificial corneas are a much sought-after technology, as the normal treatment for a damaged cornea is to seek a transplanted replacement. However, for every 70 corneas sought, there is only a single donor cornea. CorNeat Vision is set to offer the first commercially available synthetic cornea implant, the KPro.
The new cornea has a clear centre section, surrounded by a white skirt consisting of electrospun nanofibres. Electrospun nanofibres have already found application in many medical applications, such as a new kind of translucent burn dressing. This skirt’s nanofibre material allows fibroblasts and collagen to infiltrate its structure, allowing full integration within a few weeks of surgery. This biomimetic technology results in faster healing times, the ability to use fully synthetic implants and is fully scalable as it does not rely on any harvested tissue.
The implantation procedure involves removing the epithelium covering the cornea, marking the location of where the artificial cornea implant should go, removing the cornea and then suturing its replacement into position.
Only a day after his surgery, the first recipient of this new artificial cornea was able to make out the faces of his relatives and read numbers off of a chart.
Source: Medical Xpress
