People with blindness can read again after retinal implant

Summary

An electrical device implanted under the retina helps to restore some visual acuity to people with age-related macular degeneration.Credit: Science CorporationScientists have used an eye implant to improve the vision of dozens of people left functionally blind by age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The implant, which measures 2 millimetres by 2 millimetres, and is just 30 micrometres thick, is surgically inserted beneath the retina to replace the light-sensitive cells that have been lost to the disease.The clinical trial, which is described today in The New England Journal of Medicine1, involved 38 people with advanced AMD whose retinas had degenerated severely. One year after device implantation, 80% of participants had gained a clinically meaningful improvement in their vision.“Where this dead retina was a complete blind spot, vision was restored,” says trial leader Frank Holz, an ophthalmologist at the University of Bonn in Germany. “Patients could read letters, they could read words, and they could function in their daily life.”Reversing blindness with stem cellsDespite some minor events related to implantation surgery, the trial’s safety-monitoring board viewed the device’s benefits as outweighing its risks. In June, the device’s owners — the San Francisco-based neurotechnology company Science Corporation — applied for certification that would allow the device to be sold on the European market.“I think this is an exciting and significant study, which has been well-designed and analysed. It gives hope for providing vision in patients for whom this was more ‘science-fiction’ than reality,” says Francesca Cordeiro, an ophthalmologist at Imperial College London.Restored visionAMD is the commonest form of incurable blindness in older people. There are two main types, wet and dry AMD. The current work studied people with dry AMD, the advanced form of which affects around five million people globally. In dry AMD, the central retina’s light-sensitive cells die over...