The world’s first whole eye transplant was performed in the USA
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In the USA, doctors transplanted an entire eye to a patient for the first time. Despite the fact that the man’s vision did not recover, this case is a breakthrough for medicine.
This is reported by Reuters.
The transplant was performed on 46-year-old military veteran Aaron James. An accident happened to him – the man was electrocuted at work. As a result, his left face, nose, mouth and left eye were badly damaged.
Aaron had a partial face transplant and an eye transplant. It lasted 21 hours. In six months, doctors noticed positive dynamics in the organ of vision – blood vessels and retina functioned well.
| Aaron James and Doctor Eduardo Rodriguez. Photo: NYU Langone Health |
“The very fact that we have transplanted an eye is a huge step forward that has been thought about for centuries but never done.” – noted Eduardo Rodriguez, who headed the team of doctors.
According to him, the goal of the doctors was not to restore vision, but to preserve the viability of the eyeball.
To speed up the restoration of the connection between the eye’s optic nerve and the recipient’s brain, surgeons harvested stem cells from the donor’s bone marrow and injected them into the nerve. However, at present, the connection between them has not been established.
As Rodriguez notes, other research groups are developing a way to connect the brain’s neural networks to blind eyes by inserting electrodes.
At the same time, Aaron James did not count on what he would be able to see with the transplanted eye.
“The doctors never expected it to work at all, and they told me that from the start.
I told them, “Even if I can’t see at least you all can learn something to help the next person.” I hope this opens up a new path.” – said the patient.
However, Eduardo Rodriguez assures that James still has a chance to regain vision in the transplanted eye.
“I don’t think anyone can claim that he will see. But for the same reason, no one can claim that he won’t see. For now, I think we are quite satisfied with the result that we have been able to achieve with the help of a technically very complex operation”, – commented the surgeon.
It will be recalled that a man who received a pig heart transplant died in the USA.
Read also: How to give consent for posthumous donation in Ukraine
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