According to the British Telegraph on the 20th, 38 blind patients from five countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, participated in a clinical trial of the “Prima” implant developed by the California biotech company Science Corporation.
These are patients with dry macular degeneration (AMD) called “geographic atrophy (GA), and received a micro photoelectric microchip with a diameter of 2 mm, which is about the thickness of a hair, under the retina. The patients then wore special glasses equipped with a video camera. The camera sends an image converted into an infrared signal to a chip in the eye, and the signal is sent back to a small portable processor to restore visual information.
This signal is clearly controlled through a portable processor and then sent to the brain through implants and optic nerves. Patients were trained to interpret new forms of visual information for months, and as a result, 27 out of 32 transplants were able to read again using their central vision.
“They were elderly people who couldn’t read, write, and recognize faces due to loss of vision,” said Mahit Mukit, a professor at London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital who led the clinical trial. “It is an unprecedented achievement in the history of artificial vision,” he said. “It is an unprecedented achievement that opens a new era in the history of artificial vision.” The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. “It was the first time to confirm that patients who are blind due to geographic atrophy can restore their central vision,” said Frank Holtz, a professor at Germany’s University of Bonn. “The paradigm of AMD treatment in the late stages will change.”
“I was a passionate reader, and I wanted to bring back that life,” 70-year-old contestant Sheila Irvin said. “It was a thrill when letters that I had never seen began to show up again one day.” However, she added, “I have to fix my hair and wear special glasses, so I don’t use them outdoors.”
Prima implants are currently in the pre-commercial stage, and cannot be used except for clinical trials, and the cost has not been confirmed. “We hope that they will be provided by the National Health Service (NHS) within a few years,” said Mookit. However, the BBC reported that it is difficult for people with congenital visual impairments to expect effects due to lack of optic nerve function.
SAM KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
