As a result, his eyesight improved.
Chinese transplantologists said they underwent an operation to transplant a pig cornea, artificially grown by bioengineers, to a person last September. “During the three months of the recovery period, the patient's vision gradually improved, which means that the transplant was successful,” said Zhai Hualei, a spokesman for China's Shaidong Eye Institute.
A 60-year-old patient named Wang Xinyi suffered from a severe corneal ulcer and was only able to see moving objects within 10 centimeters of one of his eyes. Over time, he could go blind in one eye, and doctors did not have enough donated corneas of a person's eye to help him, Xinhuanet reports.
As a result, the specialists decided to transplant a pig cornea into a man, which was created according to the technology officially approved in April this year. Its clinical trials have been conducted since 2010, and the success rate has reached almost 95%, which is comparable to the success rate for human cornea transplant. As Zhai Hualei explains, the artificial cornea of the pig eye is specially modified in order to achieve maximum biocompatibility and safety for humans - in particular, it lacks various antigens.
A successful transplant could give hope to millions of Chinese people, bioengineers say. Corneal-related eye diseases are extremely common in this country, and although the number of people suffering from them continues to increase by about 100 thousand annually, only 5 thousand people a year undergo corneal transplants.
Dmitry Erusalimsky
