NEW YORK, June 17 (UPI) -- New York surgeons say a procedure restored sight in the right eye of a 63-year-old man who, for 55 years, had a detached retina that left him blind in the eye.
Thought to be the first time sight has been restored after such a long period of post-retinal detachment blindness, doctors say they hope the procedure can help restore sight in other patients, Medical News Today reported Friday.
"To the best of our knowledge this is the first report of visual recovery in a patient with longstanding traumatic retinal detachment," said Olusola Olawoye, a doctor at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, where the surgery was performed, and lead author on a paper describing the procedure.
If the retina remains detached for a long time, it typically is impossible to restore sight, even if the retina is reattached successfully, doctors said.
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Cataract surgery when the unnamed man was 23 temporarily restored some ability to see light, the doctors said, but by the time the man went to the institute last year, he was completely blind in his right eye. His retina detached when he was hit by a rock at age 8.
Doctors said an examination revealed the patient had total hyphema, where blood pools in the front part of the eye; neovascular glaucoma, a secondary type of glaucoma resulting from growth of new blood vessels in areas where they do not belong; high intraocular pressure, high pressure in the fluid inside the eye; and a detached retina.
"This is not only a great result for our patient but has implications for restoring eyesight in other patients," Olawoye said, "especially in the context of stem cell research into retinal progenitor cells, which may be able to be transplanted into diseased retinas to restore vision."
