Stem Cells Give Sight To Blind Woman


Recommended Posts

Stem Cells Give Sight To Blind Woman

Doctors have taken stem cells from a dead donor and transplanted them into a blind woman, allowing her to see for the first time in years.The pioneering surgery was carried out on Deborah Catlyn, who was blind in one eye through a childhood accident and lost the sight in her other eye after acid was thrown in her face at a nightclub.She feared she would never see her new daughter, Miracle, but just a month after the baby was born, Deborah had the operation.

Surgeons grew the cells in a laboratory to form a thin layer and after 12 days the sheet of stem cells was draped over the front of Deborah's eye and held in place by a biological bandage made from part of a placenta.

Within three weeks the bandage melted away, leaving the stem cells to repair the cornea - the transparent window at the front of the eye.

Deborah had been told she would be blind for life but her sight is now good enough for her to drive.

More than 20 patients have now had the operation at the Queen Victoria Hospital in Sussex and surgeons believe the risks involved are far lower than in a traditional cornea transplant.

Source: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050428/140/fhgy7.html

Hopefully they'll be able to do the same with other organs or tissue some day :cool:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

WOW!! Thats a hell of a lot better than those lame "borg-style" eye transplants.

Being able to drive > Being able to see colored dots

Link to comment
Share on other sites

who was blind in one eye through a childhood accident and lost the sight in her other eye after acid was thrown in her face at a nightclub.

acid throw into her face in a nightclub? wow.

well good to know that something like this is possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm skeptical..

585844068[/snapback]

You should be...I googled this and I can't find anything about it. You would think something like this would make the news at least throughout all of Europe, if not the world.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quick, hide this news story or we'll have American-Christian's burning down the hospital, chanting ritual curses whilst condemning Britney Spears latest single as "work of the devil"! :whistle:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quick, hide this news story or we'll have American-Christian's burning down the hospital, chanting ritual curses whilst condemning Britney Spears latest single as "work of the devil"! :whistle:

585844094[/snapback]

Quite the stereotype...I'm American and Christian but I support this...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We had a case recently here in NZ where a woman suffering from motor neurone disease went to China to have stem cell therapy. She was home a few weeks later and playing golf.

Before she left, she couldn't even talk or swallow.

"Soon after the 50-minute procedure in a Beijing hospital - which saw two million stem cells planted into her brain under local anaesthetic - Mrs Terpstra was able to eat and drink freely for the first time in months."

Google -> "Willie Terpstra"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quick, hide this news story or we'll have American-Christian's burning down the hospital, chanting ritual curses whilst condemning Britney Spears latest single as "work of the devil"! :whistle:

585844094[/snapback]

To be fair...not all American Xtians are like this. Conservatives here are very heterogeneous and we only have a moral minority that pulls **** like that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To be fair...not all American Xtians are like this. Conservatives here are very heterogeneous and we only have a moral minority that pulls **** like that.

585844122[/snapback]

Yeah I definitely wouldn't pigeonhole christians like that. I think they are often a vocal minority. Unfortinately, some of them make it into positions of power and really stir things up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah I definitely wouldn't pigeonhole christians like that.  I think they are often a vocal minority.  Unfortinately, some of them make it into positions of power and really stir things up.

585844131[/snapback]

Yeah, and I'm an agnostic. Haha. I just dont like facts getting twisted. I may not be religious but I do defend truth.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah I definitely wouldn't pigeonhole christians like that.  I think they are often a vocal minority.  Unfortinately, some of them make it into positions of power and really stir things up.

585844131[/snapback]

It is a stereotype for a reason. Obviously I know they don't represent every Christian, it's just they have a way of getting an awful lot of press coverage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is a stereotype for a reason. Obviously I know they don't represent every Christian, it's just they have a way of getting an awful lot of press coverage.

585844145[/snapback]

The press covers anything crazy and it doesnt take a lot of people to do something crazy/newsworthy. We have a minority of mentally ill people and hey, they sometimes get loose and start doing weird things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Something showing up on Google News...this story is kinda contained to just Britain for some reason.

Stem cell treatment restored mum's vision2.21PM, Thu Apr 28 2005

A woman who was blinded after she was attacked with acid has had her eyesight almost totally restored.

Deborah Catlyn thought she would never set eyes on her toddler daughter, Miracle, believing her vision might be permanently lost.

But revolutionary stem cell treatment has helped her regain 80 per cent of her vision and could hold the key for thousands of others.

She said it was amazing to finally see photos of her daughter growing up.

"I looked at the photos and I cried because I couldn't believe my little girl was so beautiful," she said.

Ms Catlyn underwent surgery at East Grinstead in West Sussex where consultant eye surgeon Sheraz Daya has performed the operation on more than 20 other patients.

The procedure involves taking stem cells which occur naturally in the eye from cadavers and transplanting them into patients eyes where they grow to heal the damaged cornea.

Doctors believe the stem cells they transplant into damaged eye somehow stimulated the patients' bodies to produce their own stem cells.

And this is her.

1293086.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You should be...I googled this and I can't find anything about it. You would think something like this would make the news at least throughout all of Europe, if not the world.

585844086[/snapback]

It was on the News tonight. They had an interview with her and the doctors that were involved.

http://www.itv.com/news/index_728618.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/souther...ies/4495419.stm

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It was on the News tonight. They had an interview with her and the doctors that were involved.

http://www.itv.com/news/index_728618.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/souther...ies/4495419.stm

585844205[/snapback]

Funny this isnt making the news here in America...

I submitted the story to the Drudge Report so more Americans can find out about this and hopefully some people will find help with their problems.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Someone help me find out more information about this ..a number prices anything ....as you know I'm blind in one eye .....I'll pay an amount to be able to see well...

-Romeo

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.