This is good news for eyes patients who are suffering from very rare genetic eyes disorder called aniridia . It is caused by congenital absence or partial absence of the iris.
At very young age, sufferers develop glaucoma or cataracts that normally associated with old age. A team of doctors in Queen Victoria Hospital, in East Grinstead, said four patients had so far reported an improvement in their condition with stem cell therapy . Patients of aniridia have few or no limbal stem cells under the eyelid, which in turn disrupts the surface of the cornea resulting in pain and loss of vision.
Treatment: For the treatment of aniridia, stem cell can be taken from dead donor of or living relatives that can be grown in a lab and transplanted onto the cornea of patient. The donor cells trigger the patient’s own stem cell production resulting in better eye vision. Later on this technique could also work in other organs such as the liver and pancreas.
Eye specialist Sheraz Daya, from the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, West Sussex, said: “We think the donor cells have attracted stem cells from the bone marrow to make new limbal stem cells, which have arrived at the eye through the bloodstream.”
