Surgical world-first in Turin restores blind woman’s sight with macula transplant

Turin: Surgeons in Turin have performed a world-first simultaneous transplant of a complete human macula, cornea, sclera and connective tissue from one of a patient’s eyes to the other, allowing a woman blind for several years to see again.

The patient, 67-year-old Elena, lost her eyesight in a road accident that severed the optic nerve in her left eye but left other eye tissues intact. Her right eye had the opposite damage — an intact optic nerve but destroyed retina, cornea and ocular stem cells.

Professor Michele Reibaldi at Molinette Hospital in Turin’s City of Health and Science led the 6-hour operation, describing it as a “complicated marathon” requiring coordination of surgeons, anesthetists and staff.

The team transplanted the healthy macula — the small light-sensitive region at the back of the retina responsible for high-definition vision — along with cornea and sclera from Elena’s left eye to her right eye, where the optic nerve was preserved.

“This procedure represents a new frontier in ocular surgery,” Reibaldi said. “Before today, such a contemporaneous transplant of the anterior eye tissue had occurred just once before, while the central retina has never been possible.”

Follow-ups confirmed the tissues reattached correctly. Elena immediately regained enough vision to recognize her son and her dog, Joe.”Now we will wait and see how well the transplanted retina functions, though early signs are encouraging,” Reibaldi said.