What is it about?
We question the existing paradigm and concerning corneal endothelial regeneration in the human eye. The data support further clinical study to determine the safety of simple tissue resection in central endothelial pathologies, such as Fuchs corneal endothelial dystrophy, where presence of healthy peripheral cells may allow successful corneal recompensation without the need for donor cells.
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Why is it important?
At this moment, corneal endothelial endothelial transplantation is responsible for 40% of all performed corneal transplantations and still growing. If this proposed alternative therapy proofs be at least even successful as the golden standard, it would open the way to restore sight of more visually impaired people. As there would no need for donor eyes and related eye bank infrastructure, these therapies would also be available for countries that have not enough donor eyes and, above all, for third world countries.
Perspectives
This publication has implications for the clinics and patients that would benefit, but also for basic research translational research groups that are currently developing alternative endothelial cell therapies.
Bert Van den Bogerd
Universiteit Antwerpen
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A review of the evidence for in vivo corneal endothelial regeneration, Survey of Ophthalmology, August 2017, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.survophthal.2017.07.004.
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