Top scientists at Moorfields Eye Hospital are shining a new light in the quest for a cure for blindness. Until now patients suffering from retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic disease which leads to inevitable blindness, have been faced with a bleak prognosis. Sufferers first notice difficulty with night vision. This leads to tunnel vision and eventual legal blindness, striking at anytime from early childhood to late 40s.
The rare but devastating condition affects one in 3,000 in the UK and there is no known cure.
But trials of retinal implants over the past three years, known as the ‘bionic eye’, have produced results never before thought possible.
Ron, a sufferer of RP, said he is thrilled with the results. “They said let ‘there be light and there was light’,” he said. “For 30 years I’ve seen absolutely nothing at all. It’s all been black but now light is coming through.”
Patients taking part in the trial were fitted with a device consisting of a tiny camera and transmitter mounted in a pair of glasses. Spots of light then trigger responses from an implant fitted inside of the eye.
The trial aimed to restore a “useful level of vision” and some of the patients fitted with the device have wowed doctors in their ability to identify letters and words.
Mr Lyndon da Cruz, who is overseeing the investigation at the City Road hospital, said: “The improvements are the sort of thing you dream of. If someone had told me at the start of the trial that we were aiming for reading vision, I would have cautioned them about unrealistic expectations. It is very rare in a first trial that you achieve something beyond what your expectations are, but that has been the case here.”
CE certification was granted last week and scientists hope that after a few more tests, the treatment will soon be available in the UK, both privately and on the NHS, and in the rest of Europe.
