Medical marvel: Surgeons in New York successfully conduct the world’s first whole-eye transplant

Surgeons in New York announced on Thursday that they had performed the first-ever whole-eye transplant on a human, an achievement hailed as a breakthrough despite the fact that the patient has not regained sight in the eye.

According to the surgical team at NYU Langone Health, the grafted eye has shown important signs of health in the six months since the surgery, which was performed during a partial face transplant, including well-functioning blood vessels and a promising-looking retina.

“The mere fact that we transplanted an eye is a huge step forward, something that for centuries has been thought about, but it’s never been performed,” said Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, who led the team.

Until now, doctors could only transplant the cornea or the clear front layer of the eye.

Aaron James, 46, is a military veteran from Arkansas who survived a work-related high-voltage electrical accident that destroyed the left side of his face, nose, mouth, and left eye.

The transplanted eye is currently not communicating with the brain

The transplant procedure lasted 21 hours.

Initially, doctors intended to include the eyeball as a cosmetic component of the face transplant, Rodriguez explained in a Zoom interview.

“If some form of vision restoration occurred, it would be wonderful, but… the goal was for us to perform the technical operation,” and have the eyeball survive, Rodriquez added.

Whatever happens going forward will be monitored, he said.

The transplanted eye is currently not communicating with the brain via the optic nerve.

Surgeons harvested adult stem cells from the donor’s bone marrow and injected them into the optic nerve during the transplant, hoping that they would replace damaged cells and protect the nerve.

Even if sight is not restored in this case, Rodriguez believes that transplanting a viable eye globe opens up many new possibilities.

Other research teams, he said, are working on ways to connect nerve networks in the brain to sightless eyes, for example, by inserting electrodes.

The world’s first whole-eye transplant: Doctors “never expected it to work at all

“If we can work with other scientists that are working on other methods of restoring vision or restoring images to the visual cortex, I think we’re one step closer,” Rodriguez said.

James, who had retained vision in his right eye, was concerned that he might not be able to regain vision in the transplanted eye.

The doctors “never expected it to work at all, and they told me that from the get-go,” he said.

“I told them, ‘Even if I can’t see… maybe at least you all can learn something to help the next person.’ That’s how you get started,” he said. “Hopefully this opens up a new path.”

James might still regain sight in the transplanted eye, Rodriguez said.

“I don’t think anyone can claim that he will see. But by the same token, they can’t claim that he will not see,” Rodriguez said. “At this point, I think we’re pretty happy with the result that we were able to achieve with a very technically demanding operation.”