Stem cell treatment restores vision

London, June 24 (ANI): In a new trial, stem cells helped scientists restore the vision of 82 people with eyes blinded by chemical or heat burns.

According to New Scientist, of the 107 eye patients treated, some as long as a decade ago, the successful cases had sight restored to a level up to 0.9 on a visual acuity scale, in which 1 represents perfect vision, reports Graziella Pellegrini at the University of Modena in Italy.

For patients who had burns only in one eye, researchers treated them with corneal stem cells extracted from their good eye.

The stem cells were taken from the limbus, a disc surrounding the iris and restored transparency to corneas that had become opaque via the destruction of the damaged eye's store of corneal stem cells.

The results were published in The New England Journal of Medicine. (ANI)