Stem cell therapy offers ray

Cells from eye, mouth used to restore vision

MUMBAI: Abhishek Sharma, a 34-year-old from New Delhi, can not only read the fine print of Sidney Sheldon and Harry Potter books without straining his eyes, but also ride a bike as easily as anyone else. Besides, he can complete his assignments as a business development manager at a top insurance firm.

All this is a far cry from his sorry state ten years ago, when he couldn’t even see a person a step away. Towards 1998 end, his corneas dried up, blurring his vision.
Meetings with various doctors, coupled with treatments covering allopathy, homeopathy and ayurveda, followed but to no avail.

Finally, Sharma’s parents decided to allow their son to take corneal epithelial stem cell therapy, which involves taking stem cells from his parents’ eyes (as both of Sharma’s eyes were damaged), culturing and injecting them into his eyes.

The therapy, handled by eye surgeon Virender Sangwan at Hyderabad’s LV Prasad Eye Institute in 2000-01, worked wonders and restored Sharma’s eyesight, making him one of the first people in the country to undergo this therapy. Today, the father of two leads a comfortable professional and personal life. Restoration of vision through this therapy helped Sharma continue his education and become a manager in his company.

Since then, corneal epithelial stem cell therapy is gradually emerging as a new ray of light for those who have lost their vision as a result of chemical burns or drug reactions. If a patient’s one eye is damaged, the stem cells from the good eye can be taken for therapy.

If the damage is to both eyes, the treatment no longer needs stem cells from a close relative’s eyes (like in Sharma’s case) as it did earlier. Doctors are successfully using stem cells from under the lips of the patient, called oral mucosa tissues, said Geeta K Vemuganti, head (ocular pathology services) at LV Prasad Eye Institute, which has till date operated on over 600 patients.

“Stem cells inside the cheeks of the patient can also be used for treatment. As the patient’s own tissues are used, the risk of rejection is negligible and there are no side-effects,” said an eye surgeon from Madurai’s Aravind Eye Hospital, which has treated about 12 patients through this therapy.

Stem cells are the master cells of the body and have the ability to grow into new cells, such as those of nerves, eyes, muscles and heart. Though stem cells are popular in the treatment of spinal cord injuries and heart diseases, they are now catching on in the treatment of blindness too, said Gul Nankani, consulting ophthalmologist at Lilavati
Hospital and founder of Krishna Eye Centre in Mumbai. So far, at both LV Prasad and Aravind, the success rate has been 60-70%, that is, 60-70% of the patients have got back over 70% of their vision.

In case of the rest, vision has been restored only to the extent of 30-40%. The treatment costs Rs 15,000-20,000 depending on the level of damage to the eye.
g_priyanka@dnaindia.net