Total eye transplantation for the blind: a challenge for the future.
Blindness is a human and social problem of incalculable weight. In the future, artificial 'bionic' prostheses and retinal grafts could achieve a long-sought cure. Several lines of evidence led to the speculation that a total eye transplantation for the cure of retinal blindness may become feasible in the near future. It is proposed that a brain dead patient's eye, whose retinal viability has been demonstrated with an electroretinogram recording, be transplanted into the blind's voided orbital socket, through a frontoorbitotemporal craniotomy and orbitozygomatic osteotomy. Regenerating optic nerve axons are channeled in a specially constructed guide to the homolateral corpus genicolatum laterale, while the retinal ganglion cells are adequately protected during the regrowth period. Aspects of this paradigm are reviewed and discussed.
Canavero
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Neurosurgical Clinic, Turin, Italy.
D000818:Animals; D001766:Blindness / Q000601:surgery*; D005123:Eye / Q000637:transplantation*; D006801:Humans; D008722:Methods; D009416:Nerve Regeneration; D009900:Optic Nerve / Q000502:physiology; D012160:Retina / Q000502:physiology; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology / Q000601:surgery